Swifter Than the Stars
by belladonnacullen
Summary: Once upon a time there was a girl who met a boy. She didn't want to leave home. He never wanted to go back to his. Together they discover more about themselves than they ever could have imagined alone. About stars, science, souls and young love. ExB, AH, rated M.
1. Chapter 1

**Many thanks to SueBee0619 & RoseArcadia for dusting off their fanfic dancing shoes and stepping onto the floor with me, and to Nicffwhisperer for holding my hand. I don't own Twilight... do people still write that? Now, without further ado...**

 **Chapter 1**

There once was a fair maiden christened Isabella, who lived in the hamlet of Bryn Athyn in the kingdom of Line on the Main. Isabella lived with her father, Charles Swan, a gentle widower who ministered to those taken ill in their small village and in the cottages in the yonder woods. A fair and modest man, Charles Swan also worked with his daughter to tend to their home, their livestock, and the small garden patch and orchard where they grew their vegetables and fruit. In the evenings before Isabella closed her eyes in sleep, she would lie awake and talk with her father and they would tell stories to one another - fairy legends and more spontaneous yarns born from long days of labor and overactive minds. They would discuss the world and the skies beyond in terms Charles worried might be taken for either mutiny or blasphemy were they overheard by lord or friar. Most cherished by Isabella were stories of her mother, who passed before she was one year on this earth. Isabella's mother, Renee, had been remarkable indeed, but her surviving husband expounded on her mother's knowledge and virtue, and so Renee Swan grew to mythic proportions in Isabella's mind's eye. An imposing and learned individual, Renee became a role model whose greatness Isabella could only half hope to aspire to.

As Isabella grew in height, her father watched as she likewise grew in knowledge, compassion and beauty. He caught glimpses of his wife in the arc of his daughter's neck, her chestnut curls, and in the reason of her mind and brightness of her intellect. He was saddened that this foretold that she would one day leave their cottage and make a new life of her own. If he could have, Charles Swan would have protected and provided for his daughter forever, but a woman kept for selfish reasons could never find her life's true purpose, nor would her heart sincerely love.

For her part, Isabella could not imagine that she would find need to leave her father and his home. She knew that her father would support whatever she chose as her life's pursuit, and this security and strength was perfect. She grew impatient when her father would suggest another home, another hamlet, another man in whom she might find love. Her father saw the signs in her body, and she rebelled against it; tightly lacing her bodice to flatten her chest, hiding her hips under aprons and smocks, and keeping her monthly blood as her first and only secret from her father.

One crisp autumn afternoon, Isabella was taking her time as she tended to the ripening gourds in her garden. The sky above her head shone in rich turquoise with streaks of clouds silvered by the rays of the slanting sunlight. Leaves rustled overhead like bright fire in tones of deepest orange and bruised red. Leaning against the low stone wall that enclosed their patch of land, Isabella closed her eyes and fancied that she felt the tilt of the earth beneath her feet as foretold by the crisp, autumn wind. She let her mind open, wandering, wondering if the change of season was as sweet in other villages, in other kingdoms, and whether there were worlds beyond the blue sky overhead that provided growing girls with the dazzle of color and sensation that she was gifted with today.

"Excuse me, kind maiden." An unfamiliar and unexpected voice came from the direction of the lane.

Startled, Isabella clutched the stones at her back, dropping the plump gourd she'd been handling. It burst at her feet and splattered golden pulp over the hem of her muslin gown.

"I did not intend to startle your senses, kind maiden."

Isabella looked up from the mess at her feet to find two gentlemen dressed in the kind of silk and velvet finery she had heretofore only dreamt about in the evenings when reciting fairy tales with her father. The older of the two gentlemen was tall and portly, with hair that rivaled the shining silver of the clouds. His eyes were of the gentlest blue, reminiscent of a spring sky in morning. His companion, who Isabella judged to be nearer to her own age, had buttery skin, eyes the color of clover, and bright hair emulous of the autumn glory in the trees overhead.

"Why do you assume I am kind?" she asked the gentlemen.

"Any maiden as pink-cheeked and pretty must certainly have a heart and manner to match," the older gentleman replied.

The younger gentleman watched her carefully, with purpose bordering on insolence. Isabella felt her cheeks warming under their entitled inspection.

"I do not truck with strange fellows, so I will give you no answer about my heart or manners, sir. Please excuse me while I go back to my work at hand. It seems we have one less gourd to lay up for the coming winter."

Kneeling, Isabella picked at the pieces of rind at her feet. She certainly did not need to clean the garden floor, however she was unused to the open scrutiny of the traveling gentlemen and desired to disengage herself from the judgement hastened by their gaze.

"Dear maiden, neither kind nor cruel, we are here seeking the services of Charles Swan of Bryn Athyn. We were directed to this cottage, but were not expecting to find such a beauty when we sought out a soul by the name of Charles. Please excuse my surprise and do not take offence at my admiration. It is a rare treat for one as aged as I to recall the ripe tenderness of youth."

With her eyes trained on the ground and all of her body's humors rushing to her cheeks till she felt they might burst into flame, Isabella took a deep breath. She heard the younger gentleman sigh.

"My father is the man you seek, Charles Swan of Bryn Athyn," she quietly admitted. "He is with the Missus Fallowell as she brings life into the world this autumn day."

"At a birth bed? Yes, indeed, his are the services we are after."

"Are you with child, or are you ill?" Isabella asked, chancing a glance at the gentlemen at the cottage gate. The royal blue and green velvet of their vests and knickers and the golden silk of their stockings complimented the colors of fall as if the two had aimed to make art of the day. They appeared neither peaked nor weak, although neither did they seem sturdy enough for the daily labor that life in Bryn Athyn entailed.

"Thank the skies, neither applies to our condition. My horse has fallen and does not rise."

"And how does this concern my father?" Isabella asked, confused. She glanced purposefully at the younger of the two and noticed that he suddenly found cause to gaze at his feet.

The senior gentleman cleared his throat before he explained, "My son has a heart too soft for the man's body that he inhabits. He will not let me lay the matter to rest. So, we have come seeking succor for our steed."

"But my father tends to people, not pets, good sir."

"Why must a human's life have more value than any other good soul birthed into servitude, giving of her body without quarrel or complaint?" the son demanded of his father, fire alighting his cheeks, and also strange and green in his eyes.

"Animals possessing souls?" Isabella asked. When the son glanced at her, she remembered she was still on her knees. This seemed strangely inappropriate, and she rose and faced the two unfamiliar gentlemen head on.

"Please excuse my son's blasphemy and take no fear from it. The boy means well enough." Turning to his son, the man continued, "Edward, please contain yourself and your womanly vicissitudes. You risk angering these inhabitants with your unchristian theories, and then good Rosalie will surely be lost."

"I am woman and yet have never harbored fanciful ideas about horses and souls, sir. These are certainly Edward's vicissitudes and not my own," Isabella countered, slightly off-put by the way her skin tingled when she pronounced the young man's given name.

The older gentleman's lips turned up in smile, a playful glint in his eye.

"Why couldn't a horse have a soul?" the young man asked sullenly.

"And may I ask how we can be certain any of us has a soul?" Isabella challenged.

"Father, I do not think we need worry about my blasphemy. We have happened upon a heathen."

"I am no heathen, sir, I simply await proof of the existence of these souls. I have neither measured their size, nor hefted their weight. Science has yet to settle on a cipher."

"Perhaps you are going at it wrong, miss. Souls are considered for their light, not their weight," the young man suggested.

"A light mine eyes have never detected, yet they are daily dazzled by the honey-yellow sun," Isabella was quick to reply, looking heavenward, letting her face bask in the warm autumnal glow from the heavens above.

"Ha! It's taken only nineteen years, an expedition and a broken mare for my son to meet his match," the older gentleman replied. "Now, is there anyone else about the cottage, my dear, so that we might find respite while we wait on your father's return?"

"We are just the two of us, my father and I, and when he is gone there is but one. But give me your name as your bond and you may indeed wait inside these gates." Isabella was somewhat surprised at the eagerness of her invitation, but the whimsical conversation that had sprung up betwixt the trio was physically electrifying. She'd never before let her fancy run with anyone save her father on these, the queerest of her philosophies. Surely she could speak freely to a man who endowed an animal with a soul.

"I apologize, dear maiden. My name is Carlisle Cullen of Center City, and this is my son, Edward."

Isabella gasped, and if she had another gourd in hand, the hem of her dress would have been doubly sullied. Carlisle Cullen was Lord Protector of Line on the Main, a name that carried with it both the deepest respect and the deepest fear. He was known as a fair man, yet he kept order in the Kingdom with judgment both swift and severe. The lord had three sons, and Edward was his youngest. Emmett Cullen, the eldest, was a Knight that rode with the Green Army, and Jasper Cullen, the middle son, was a ship's Captain, conquering lands across the Distant Sea. Isabella would certainly have tamped down her capricious notions had she recognized the noblemen before her. She was aghast at her verbosity and insolence.

"My lords," she mumbled, honoring the gentlemen with a hasty curtsey.

"Dear maiden, please rise and grace us with your own given name."

Isabella straightened her legs, but kept her eyes on the ground. "I am Isabella Swan of Bryn Athyn, my lord."

"A name as lovely as your visage," Lord Cullen remarked. As he hesitated in the lane, Isabella realized that she must open the gate for her noble visitors. She hastened forward, unlatched clapboard, and stepped back to allow the gentlemen passage, still anxious, but also grateful that the fine autumn day had bestowed upon her both predictable beauty and an unexpected surprise.

xXxXx

The noblemen were pleased to avail themselves of the Swan's brown bread and butter, cold lamb and crisp apples. They politely refused both mead and plum wine in favor of cool well water, kept fresh with spearmint from her herb garden.

Her father returned from the Fallowell birth bed bleary and spent, but needed no introduction to the Lord and his son. Scarcely had he taken time to wash his hands and face before he set out with the gentlemen to survey the condition of the injured mare. While Isabella would likely have accompanied her father on such an unusual expedition in the past, this evening she stayed behind to prepare as close an approximation to a dinner feast as their meager pantry would provide. It was some hours later when the elder Swan returned with the lord and his son, as well as the blacksmith and his boy, and somewhat disconcertingly, the tanner and his apprentice - all coaxing a limping and languid chestnut mare. A dark brown horse trotted impatiently alongside the troupe, and Isabella guessed it to be Lord Cullen's gelding.

With horses to board, a home to open in welcome, and several hungry men to accommodate, it was hours before Isabella had a moment's respite - and a pile of dirty crockery. As she soaked and scoured the earthen dinnerware, she gazed out at the indigo darkness and the shimmering points of light that illuminated the black silhouette of the forest. For as long as she could remember, the allure of distant skies was all that was needed to send her thoughts heavenward and kindle her imagination. Yet, on this exhausting evening, she found the events of her hometown more enchanting than anything imaginary her mind might conjure.

She considered the quiet chatter of the foreign men, with their unusual accents and their refined conduct, and wondered at their manner of upbringing. Their clothing hinted at luxury she had only dreamt of in stories - rich fabrics and foods, and servants that would dress, launder, cook and serve. She remembered how the young man held tight to his words, barely contributing to the conversation as his bright eyes darted about the household. Was his interest rooted in censure, or worse, in revulsion? Or was he as curious about her life as she was about his? That queer thought unsettled her innards so that they leapt against her bodice, and she settled her body with breaths as deep as her bodice would allow.

When the kitchen was finally returned to order and her homestead readied for slumber, Isabella noted that she was anything but weary after her unusually eventful evening; her body was animate with energetic curiosity. She retreated to her bedchamber, but could scarcely keep herself seated at her vanity as she unbraided and brushed her hair. Her heavy, chestnut tresses tumbled down her back in waves and the bristles of her hairbrush seemed to set off sparks against her scalp. She supposed it was due to the small life she had hitherto enjoyed, that the presence of two noble strangers could kindle to life fiery waves underneath the surface of her skin. Convincing herself that this sensation was proof she was a simpleton, she briskly unfastened her gown, unbound her bodice, and slipped into her muslin nightgown, trying with all her might to ignore the sensations her skin registered with the sweep of cloth and the crisp evening air.

Moments later, as was his habit, Charles Swan knocked on the door of her bedchamber and quietly let himself inside. While Isabella was strangely awake, she could see fatigue in the lines of her father's forehead and the sunken purple crescents underneath his eyes. She determined that she would redouble her efforts to care for their guests on the morrow and bear as much of the burden of their presence as her father would allow.

"How is the mare, Father?"

"I've identified a swelling in a hind leg and I lanced the area to allow the dark humor outlet. She lays fretfully in her stall. I used the same treatment as I did the fuller after his accident this past spring. We shall see – for fuller and horse are two separate creatures indeed."

"Ask the lord's son and I don't know that he would agree," Isabella mused.

"I must admit, these are heroic efforts to take for a beast. But the lord has promised compensation that should make the coming winter quite comfortable for this household."

Charles sat on the edge of Isabella's sleeping pallet and took her hand. "Thank you for caring for our guests this evening, Daughter. Your welcome and proficiency with their accommodation is yet more evidence that you are leaving girlhood behind and growing into a maiden both mature and wise."

"It is simply evidence that you have taught me civility and kindness."

Charles smiled down at his beautiful daughter. "Your eyes are shining this evening. It hearkens to mind the way your mother's beauty would glow from within when she was on the cusp of some astronomical discovery."

"It is not astronomy or philosophy that has stars strung in my eyes, Father. I think it's simply the appearance of two strangers at our homestead."

"Ah, yes. Lord Cullen and his son do import an exotic air."

Isabella sat up in bed. "It is not just air! They have an exotic style of dress, and an exotic accent to their speech, and exotic ideas about how to care for an injured mare. I half expected them to pull golden dust out of a hidden purse to sprinkle over our common dinner faire."

Charles chuckled and squeezed his daughter's hand. "It is the woods and the close familiarity this small village brings with it. Perhaps in maintaining this life and remaining within this village that holds memories of your mother and your childhood, I have kept you too much from the world. Perhaps I have robbed you of the opportunity for your mind to explore the world beyond Bryn Athyn."

"Oh no, Father! I love the life we share. I have everything I could ask for right here in this home, on this parcel of land. While my body has been bound to this village, you've let my mind fly freely every evening. I feel I have journeyed eons as we converse before sleep."

"Lord Cullen is also on a journey of discovery with his young son. His boy has a curious mind, and the lord hopes to quench his thirst for exploration so that he might settle down to his duty."

"His duty? Does it involve that mare?" Isabella giggled.

"I believe he is bound for the priesthood. The third son is always conscripted thus, especially among nobility of City Center."

"I believe the lord's son would make a curious priest."

"Isabella." Charles used his daughter's name in censure. While they might explore wild philosophies about science and religion between themselves, he prayed that she could contain her notions so that they would not bring rebuke from their noble borders.

His daughter lay back and pulled her coverlets to her chin. "Yes, Father," she sighed.

Charles kissed his daughter's forehead and groaned as he stood to his feet. "Caring for the fuller was not so physically demanding."

"Would you like me to draw you a salt bath to ease your limbs before slumber?"

"No, dear daughter; you rest. I am inclined to believe that our guests may exhaust us both over the course of these next few days."

As the door to her bedchamber clicked closed, Isabella was farther than ever from losing herself to dreams. 'The next few days'. Her father had awakened such longing with such a simple phrase. The prospect of conversing with the lord and his son, while studying the mannerisms and customs of the noblemen, illuminated her imagination and filled her with unbounded excitement. She tossed and turned and studied the visitors in her mind's eye. She thought of the young man bound for priesthood, yet harboring boyish beliefs about the sanctity of his steed. She was quite certain Friar Randolph would never entertain such immature folly. And then there was the way in which Lord Cullen likened his son's delusion to that of a woman. That set Isabella tossing and turning once more. Why must men believe that what stirred in her chest and hips must somehow muddle her mind?

Isabella finally gave in to the notion that sleep was a destination immediately elusive, and found that her excitement had left her mouth parched. She slipped quietly from her chamber, tiptoed through her cottage, and then carefully unlatched their back door in order to draw water from the courtyard well. Instead of bringing the bucket back into the house and risk noise or a puddle, she drank directly and basked in night noises and starlight as water slipped down her throat, escaped the corners of her mouth, and trickled down the front of her nightgown. As she tried to wipe away the water, she cast her eyes about in search of a cloth and was surprised to find a light glowing from within the stable, flickering like fire.

Worried that her fatigued father may have forgotten to dampen the oil taper, Isabella rushed to the barn to make certain the flame was contained. Instead of fire, though, she found the young nobleman seated on the floor of the freshly mucked stall. His vest was unlaced so that his white, silken undershirt hung loose against his chest. His horse's head lay in his lap, and he ran his hand through the mare's mane, and held her gaze with a look of pained devotion. It reminded Isabella of the gentleness that her father showed to his charges, although she was certain that this man's sentiments were somewhat wasted on an animal. Nevertheless, this unusual tenderness stirred her soul, and she felt compelled to leave him in peace.

xXxXx

This baby will update on Fridays. Find me on facebook at belladonna . fanfiction or on Twitter at BellaDCullen.


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks ever so much for reading and reviewing. Thanks to SueBee0619 for teaching me a thing or two about capitalization & to Nicffwhisperer for helping assure me that I'm on the right path. And thanks to LayAtHomeMom for saying nice things to her readers about this little fairy tale. ~M**

xXxXx

Chapter 2

A breeze moved through the open barn door brushing the rough, wet linen of Isabella's nightgown against her bare skin, and she was suddenly, acutely aware of the impropriety of her dress. She backed away from the young noble and his horse, but her presence was borne on the wind, and the gentleman startled and looked up from his mare. Isabella shuddered as she watched blood rush to his cheeks and the quick rise and fall of his chest underneath his loose silken undershirt.

"Excuse me, sir. I was afraid a flame forgotten may have kindled embers from within," she murmured.

"Oh, maiden, I apologize if my lamp frightened you."

At the sound of the noble's voice a smile threatened to bloom across the young woman's face. "Isabella, please. You may use my given name."

"Isabella." Her name hung in the air as if it had never been uttered before. Isabella shivered.

"May I bring you something?" she inquired. "Water for yourself or for your steed?" Isabella took a tentative step in the young man's direction. His eyes widened as her whole form emerged from behind the wall of the pen. His warm and fleeting gaze left the maiden with the urge to cover herself, but she dismissed this impulse as ridiculous; she was covered in draped linen from her neck to her toes, and its ties were fastened tightly all along her arms and at her shoulders. Instead, she tried for a casual attitude and leaned against the edge of the stall. The horse, Rosalie, snorted and stirred, and Edward's attention was once again absorbed by the animal lying alongside him.

"Do you think of her as a friend?" Isabella asked, imagining that maybe the young man was lonely.

"No, she is my slave."

"I'm sorry?" Isabella asked.

Edward's eyes were bright when he glanced up at her again. "She is a slave. She does my bidding without choice."

"She is a workhorse, sir. That is what she was made for."

"If you presume to explain to me the import of my mare, we have certainly transcended the formality of titles. Please call me Edward as you teach me the proper role for my livestock."

She had called him Edward in the lane, before she knew of his position. Even then, it struck a harmonic chord within her that set her nerves to stirring. But now, given knowledge of the young man's station, and his flaring temper over the import of a horse, the prospect of murmuring his given name felt tantalizingly illicit.

"Edward," she whispered breathlessly, bracing herself against the doorframe. "She is a workhorse. She was born into her duty."

"And why is this accepted as certain fact, Isabella?"

"Well, what would become of proper society if horses did not heft and pull? What a curiously cumbersome world that would be. Would bulls or asses be commissioned to increase their daily toil? Or maybe we would pull our own loads using personal sleighs?" Isabella watched the lines on Edward's face soften as he contemplated her philosophy. "That idea is not entirely without merit. Perhaps there is another world like this one where horses roam free and men carry their own burdens."

"Another world?" he asked. "Like a fairy story?"

She shrugged, embarrassed that her ideas were likened to those of a child. "Perhaps… just a place like this, but beyond the skies, maybe?"

"Heaven?"

Isabella gazed out the barn door at the stars twinkling in the midnight blue sky beyond. "Not exactly. Sometimes I dream of worlds beyond what we can see when I watch the sky at night. It is perchance my birthright. My mother used to study the stars. At night when I cannot sleep I read her notes and then compare them to what my own eyes can detect. I believe it is her calculated speculation that lifts my thoughts to the skies above and worlds beyond."

"She found evidence of other realms in the heavens?" Edward asked.

Isabella sighed and glanced back at the man at her feet, severing her momentary connection with her mother. "No, that reasoning is my own. I suppose I found no evidence against it in her writing, so I let my mind roam."

"Your mother was Renee Swan, then?"

Isabella nodded, warmth spreading through her chest at the sound of her lost parent's name on the young man's lips.

"I studied her writing in seminary. Her thoughts inspire many to dream."

Isabella blinked, her eyes suddenly damp. "Thank you, si-, Edward."

His emerald eyes twinkled in the lamplight. "Your dreams are certainly more remarkable than those of the other boys I studied with, Isabella."

Rosalie's large body shuddered, and Edward and Isabella cast eyes on the near-forgotten steed.

"My father is a fine physician. Your… _slave_ is in good hands."

Edward caressed the horse's head and it settled more soundly on his lap.

"Speaking of original thoughts, did your seminary companions also hold similar notions about horse's rights to free range?" Isabella asked, taking a tentative seat on the prickling dry straw at the mouth of the stall, tucking her bare feet underneath her.

Edward shook his head, but kept his attention trained on his steed. "Those thoughts I kept trapped within the cage of my mind, lest the Friars found reason to speak to my father and question my studies."

"My father says you are to enter the clergy."

"And so does mine." Edward snuck a glance at the girl before him.

"What do _you_ say?"

"It is what I say that gets me into trouble."

"Yes, your ideas are certainly queer," Isabella agreed.

"I simply protest that a horse shouldn't automatically be born into lifelong servitude."

"And then I should protest and say that I was not born into this life you see before you."

Edward glanced up from the large, chestnut head in his lap, peering about the tidy barn, before settling his gaze on Isabella's heart-shaped face framed by her own chestnut waves. "Is that how you feel?" he asked.

"Excuse me?"

"Do you ever feel that you should not have been born into this?" Edward asked beseechingly.

Isabella blanched, afraid her witticism may have been taken as censure toward the life her father provided for her. "No, sir. I simply spoke in jest. This is my home. I can imagine no other."

Edward's face fell, and he concentrated once again on the slave's head in his lap. Brisk wind rustled dry leaves in the trees outside the barn, flirted with the lamplight, and tickled Isabella's wrists where they met the hem of her nightdress. When the breeze departed they were left in soft silence.

"Could those be your feelings, sir? I mean, Edward?"

The lad continued to pet his mare before steeling himself to answer. "My father hoped that a tour of our lands would satisfy my spirit and quench my desires. My brothers settled into their stations without quarrel, but my father supposed it was because their vocations carried with them the spirit of adventure."

"And you desire similar exploits?" Isabella inquired.

Edward shrugged. "I don't know what I seek."

"I don't believe it! You desire for your horse to roam free. That cannot be your only wish." Isabella thought the boy queer, but certainly not _that_ queer.

Edward cast a tentative eye on Isabella. "I desire to explore the world beyond the walls of Center City. I desire to explore new lands and meet unfamiliar people and to acquaint myself with their traditions."

"Certainly you could do that as a member of the clergy."

The boy ducked his head. "I suppose I – I have other desires," he mumbled.

Isabella thought of the gallant tales she'd heard of Edward's brothers. Scarcely one year past, Emmett Cullen defeated the Westchester Army beyond the North Mountains and secured vast fields of rich earth for the kingdom. Jasper brought with him from his most recent adventures textiles and spices that had never been seen before in Line on the Main, not to mention an exotic courtesan who was intended as his wife. "Perhaps it is that you desire adventure, but your father took you on an extended horseback ride?" she asked.

Edward clenched his jaw and stilled his hands. "No. I simply seek a good life lived morally. I would like… a wife."

Isabella's eyes went wide, her lips parted in surprise. "Oh!"

"I shouldn't have said anything."

"It's okay!"

"Please, don't tell anyone!"

"I would never, my lord, my, I mean, Edward."

Edward concentrated on the horse's head in his lap, although Isabella was not certain that his eyes were open. He appeared deep in miserable thought. Isabella's own thoughts wandered to stories of unfathomable desire and forbidden unions. It was difficult to reconcile the gallant and desperate men in those tales with the mild-mannered nobleman on the floor of her father's barn.

"You are in love?" she asked.

Edward shook his head.

"Then who would you like to wed?" She sincerely hoped it wasn't poor Rosalie. Edward's silent petting of the horse's mane nearly confirmed her fears. "If not for love, perhaps a strategic union? Another noblewoman?" she ventured.

"I haven't met her yet," Edward rasped.

"A portrait of a maiden? A story from afar? A princess one of your brothers encountered, perhaps?"

Edward finally ventured a glance at Isabella. "A man unfettered, unmoored, is unbalanced. I believe a man needs a woman in order to root him to earth, and tap into the depths of his heart."

"No doubt friars know the earth and their hearts, sir."

"I saw firsthand the change in my father after my mother's passing; the hardness of his heart, the swiftness of his justice. I see what he seeks for solace, and it is a poor approximation to the succor provided by his wife."

"Perhaps _he_ should speak to a friar."

"I do not believe a friar can relate, and he would likely counsel to wed. My father, though, he is incomplete without my mother. He wouldn't have been half as fair-minded if he had never met her – of that I am certain."

"We are the same, then. My mother is likewise passed, and my father's heart has not healed. I'm sorry for his pain, and for yours, my lord."

"Edward."

"Edward." His name hung in the chilly air, just beyond her lips, and they tingled where her breath remained.

"I do not want his hard, lonely life. I do not want a friar's theoretical knowledge. I seek to be the man I used to see when I looked to my father. I seek the comfort and completeness he found in my mother."

"Respectfully, sir, you speak of a woman almost as if she is balm for the nature of man, yet you haven't alluded to the effect marriage to a man might have on that woman. Has your mind ever strayed to such fancies, or have not you considered the humanity of my sex?

The plum coloring that glowed on Edward's cheeks bled to his neck and across his chest.

"I take your silence as an affirmation of my suspicions."

"I'm sorry, miss. I haven't considered that aspect of your… sex," Edward choked in a whisper that seemed to take all of his effort.

Isabella folded her arms across her chest. "As I _expected_ ," she pronounced with an affirmative nod of her head. Her chestnut curls bobbed.

"You think me mad?" Edward asked, chancing a glance at the maiden seated at his side.

"Simply a man, kind sir, imbued with whatever madness that confers."

"I believe you are madder than any woman I've met in my days. Strangely, it is more stimulating than I would have imagined."

"Two of a kind."

A smile ghosted over Edward's lips and his eyes glimmered in mirth. "Well, _I_ am no heathen."

"Yet you are the one in danger of being tossed out of seminary."

"Perhaps I could change the seminary."

"And friars would marry and horses would run free."

"Soldiers would sail the galaxies looking for your imaginary worlds."

"And men would finally consider a woman's desires in proposition of marriage."

"You and I might turn the world on its head, Isabella."

She giggled. "Or we might share a cell in the asylum."

"I can't say I would suffer. I enjoy your company, maiden. I am grateful that you are brave enough to speak your mind. Many in my travels simply curtsied and showed me the crown of their head as they lowered their eyes."

Isabella peered at the floor and shook her curls. "How does the top of my head compare?"

"Your head is a mess of tumbling waves. It is the first time I've seen a woman with unfastened tresses. It is quite… lovely."

"Should we propose all women wear their hair as it grows?"

"I'm afraid industry might cease and all men lounge idle."

Isabella sighed in mock frustration. "And then who would carry the burdens, without the help of horses or man? Women? I do not like this world."

"I'm afraid those loads might get tangled in your unfettered locks."

"What a mess. I believe hairpins are a sad necessity."

Isabella shook her hair so that it tumbled over her shoulders. She watched the rise and fall of the young man's Adam's apple. She watched the rosy hue of his humors travel down his neck and over the top of his exposed chest. The fine hairs on his chest flickered in the lamplight.

"About that water…"

"Water?" Isabella answered absently, studying the contour of the man's pectoral muscles.

"You said there was water to drink? I've become quite parched."

"Oh! Yes! Water!" Isabella jumped to her feet. "Of course, sir, I mean, Edward. The water well is in the courtyard just beyond the barn. I'll be right back."

"No, you're not my slave. I can retrieve water."

"Not that matter of slavery again! You are my _guest_. I would be happy to provide you drink."

"Not if I get there first."

"Excuse me?" Isabella asked, but instead of answering, the man gingerly eased Rosalie's head from his lap, sprung to his feet, and rushed past her at a rapid clip. Giggling, Isabella raced to overtake him, but the man lengthened his strides. The two ran like children through the crisp autumn night, cold frost beneath their feet and a million stars glittering overhead.

Edward won the race by a mere moment, but he had run his hardest to outpace the young maiden. They both collapsed against the rough stone well, gasping for breath and laughing outright.

"You're not a cautious girl, are you?" Edward asked when he was finally able to speak.

"I don't know what I am," she demurred. "Are you a cautious boy?"

"I've been too cautious."

"Then kindly dispense with caution and allow me to ask you something, my lord."

"Anything," he assured her.

She could hardly ask anything, but Edward appeared sincere, and this was exciting and frightening all at once. "What did you think of my home? What of our food? How does it compare to the lands you have travelled? How do my father and neighbors compare? Where have you been? Where will your plans take you hence?"

"That is hardly one question," he admonished.

"I didn't specify just one question. I said 'something'."

"Something," he mused.

"So you are not going to tell me something after all, least of all anything."

Edward sighed with a smile. "Your home is humble, yet welcoming and clean. Your food is hearty and satisfying. As to comparison, each land I have visited is so unique; it defies a simple answer."

"I did not ask for a simple answer. I asked for _something_ , sir" Isabella teased.

"Edward," he reminded her in a voice soft and low.

"Edward," she repeated dutifully, waiting.

Edward hesitated, fiddling with the bucket and rope. "I have a proposition, but it is not a cautious one. I fear it is entirely improper. I want to ensure you that my intentions are pure at heart, yet I know my desire is selfish."

"I could not possibly answer, sir… Edward, without more information."

"Perhaps, if we spoke each night I could tell you something of my travels," he suggested.

"And how is this idea selfish? You would be answering my request."

Edward took a step away from Isabella. The moonlight glowed through her nightgown, illuminating her slender silhouette. "There is nothing disagreeable about you, maiden."

"Isabella."

"Isabella, I would like to hear more of your queer ideas. We could match strange fancy for strange fancy. That would provide my mind respite from worries about my steed."

"Your _slave_ ," she corrected.

"Rosalie. I could tell you the story of Rosalie."

"And your travels, please, Edward?" Isabella didn't care much for the sick horse that had claimed so much of the man's heart.

"Is it your bond, then? Would you agree?" he asked, excitement animating his voice.

Isabella thought of her father and his caution, she thought of his station in their village, and she thought of her mother's legacy. But with a glance at the exotic and eager nobleman, her decision was made. "Yes, but please don't tell my father, sir."

Edward's eyes darkened. "Nor mine. No, let us not tell a soul."

"Save that of your slave," Isabella answered with a small laugh that seemed to brighten the starlight betwixt the two.

"Until tomorrow, then?" Edward asked.

"Tomorrow evening, _Sir Edward_ ," she answered with a smile and a curtsey. And she ran back home with a light in her chest and life to her limbs that she hadn't known existed. There was not a possibility in the skies, or in any of the alternate dream worlds she imagined into existence, that she might ever fall into slumber that night.

xXxXx

 **The next chapter will magically appear in your inbox next Friday if you're following. I'll smile if you review. You can find me on facebook at belladonna . fanfiction or on Twitter BellaDCullen. Until next week... ~M**


	3. Chapter 3

**Twilight is not owned by me**

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**The team is complete & I'm glad you're reading. **

**~M**

* * *

 **Chapter 3**

"And they travel with their own set of golden tableware, and they sprinkle golden dust onto all of their meals!"

"Really?" Alice asked excitedly, gazing up at her friend with dark eyes alight with excitement.

Isabella passed an overflowing basket of pears to the spritely maiden on the ground below, and Alice handed an empty crate upward. The air was softly sweet with the gentle scent of ripe fruit. Bright yellow sunlight kissed their cheeks and left the girls unseasonably warm.

Isabella giggled. "No. That portion of the tale is in jest, yet everything else I have related is quite true. I swear it on the skies above." Isabella shielded her brown eyes from the streaming sunlight, peering at the cloudless, turquoise sky. In mornings past with Alice in the orchard, Isabella would often let her thoughts stray to the stars, or to stories she might tell to her father at night. Meanwhile, Alice would chatter on about rumors of the fuller's son or the unfairness of her step-mother. Most mornings, Isabella would hum underneath her breath, or would be joined by Alice in song, as the pale green leaves of the trees rustled in the heavy, mellow scent of pears, while tannins chapped their palms. But today Alice's mind was overtaken with the recent events at Isabella's cottage. This required question and answer, and song went by the wayside. And, truth be told, Isabella likewise found it difficult for her mind to adhere to any other topic, even the skies overhead.

"Now I do not know what to believe!" Alice admonished. "I am suspicious this is all one long yarn you've woven with your father's aid. Is this noble bound for lands beyond the stars in a carriage built for sky travel?" Alice had grown up with Isabella after all, and was familiar with her penchant for fairy tales.

A smile tugged at the corner of Isabella's lips. "No, he is simply bound to a brown-coated mare, but he is exploring nonetheless."

"A wandering friar," Alice mused with a sigh.

"He is not a friar! Did you not listen to a word I've uttered?"

"He will be a friar. It is nearly the same." Alice wiped the dirt from her hands on her smock. Then surveying the earthen smudge left on the crisp, cream-colored linen, she attempted to dust away evidence of her toil. "I have never seen a nobleman," she added, peering over the hedge, holding her hands strategically over her besmirched clothing.

"He is off with his lord father to visit the mayor. My father loaned him Strawberry."

"Did he eat golden dust with his breakfast?" Alice asked.

"I was joking, Alice," Isabella reiterated with an exasperated shake of her head.

"I can hardly tell jest from the truth anymore. It is all unbelievable."

"They are merely two people, just like you and me."

However, Isabella silently agreed with Alice as she reached to pluck fruit from the tree overhead. Awoken by the cock's crow earlier that morning, she all but convinced herself she had dreamt the events of the day prior. The velvet cloaks hanging on the hooks in the hallway told a different tale, and she couldn't help but run her fingers over the finery, wondering at the richness of the dyes and the weight of the material. The garments smelled of Thieves, a pungent balm against illness, mixed with pine from the forest ridge outside Bryn Athyn.

"Tell me about his features again." Alice did not need to mention whether she was referring to father or son.

"He is tall and thin, yet sturdy, like a sunset maple in autumn."

"And his eyes were green?"

"Like new clover."

Isabella had almost convinced herself that those clover-green eyes were filled with bright delight when they spotted her in the dining room that morning as she placed fresh bread on the table with butter from the larder. But after that fleeting glance, the boy found many other insignificant places to concentrate his attention. This was as much a relief as an annoyance to Isabella. She could not trust herself to speak intelligently while her insides felt so unsettled at the sight of the two noblemen in the light of day. It felt almost like her organs were searching out new places of rest. The boy had promised stories of his travel; true stories – not fanciful tales dreamed up during the day and luxuriated in at night. He promised to bring the world to her. And she had promised to speak to him in private, unchaperoned, in the dark. She had agreed to keep this from her father - their second secret in sixteen years. She could not fathom forging a similar bond in the daylight, yet she did not imagine for one moment she wouldn't return to the barn this evening.

"I do hope his horse is slow to mend," Alice enthused.

"What an ungodly wish!" Isabella chided, as much to herself as to her friend.

xXxXx

The remainder of the day passed in nervous toil. Isabella worked doubly hard in the garden and in their cottage to make sure her father could concentrate on Rosalie and his visits to ailing villagers, while steeling herself for the return of the noble travelers. However, the advancing evening brought word from the magistrate's cook that Carlisle and Edward Cullen would be dining in town. They would return afterwards for slumber. Isabella managed a courteous smile and kind words of parting to the cook. Then the fireflies that had all day been wreaking havoc within her took flight, leaving her feeling deflated and dark. She surveyed the enormous pot of stew she had been minding with special attention, thinking of all the vegetables and extra chicken that would, in all likelihood, now go to ground - a senseless waste.

Just as the last rays of burnt orange sun faded from the horizon, her father trudged through the door, unfastened his cloak and collapsed onto a bench in the kitchen. "Am I late for our guests?" he asked. His heavy limbs made manifest the weight that had befallen her soul.

"Oh Father, are you unwell?" Isabella asked, hastening to his side. He appeared more wasted and spent than he had the evening prior.

"I underestimated the toil that additional travel would bring while I let my clinic to our guests, but I shall be fine, daughter. If the scent in this kitchen is any indication, I shall feel a new man after this supper you've prepared."

"Well, there shall be plenty. Perhaps enough to make a new woman out of me as well."

"I am partial to the young woman standing before me, so let us proceed cautiously." Charles chuckled, and pulled his daughter down to sit beside him. "Now tell me, how did our guests pass their day? What was their impression of our village?"

Isabella sighed and fidgeted with the laces on her bodice. "They are more taken with the town than with our abode, that is certain. I have not seen them since we broke our fast this morning, and now Madeline has come to tell us they shall be dining with the magistrate. I'm sorry to say I've wasted our provisions, and now you're exhausted. Is this all more trouble than their recompense is worth?" Isabella asked.

"You have certainly changed your outlook on our situation since we spoke of it last."

Isabella shrugged her shoulders and could not seem to bring her eyes to meet her father's. She felt a fool for promising to meet the young man later that evening, while she apparently meant less to him than discussing summons and statutes with the local justice.

"You also appear weary, my girl. I've been out all day and have left you the fields and the hearth. Please rest here with me while I sup. Let us delight in this time together while our visitors are engaged elsewhere."

Isabella struggled to smile, lest her father guess the true meaning of her suddenly somber mood. "Yes, Father. Let us."

The maiden served stew while her father told of his day; elderly villagers requiring care, the Missus Fallowell and her new babe, the blacksmith's broken leg, a woodsman taken by delirium. Isabella took her usual seat across the rough wooden table from her father and told of her time at the homestead.

"We've picked most of the apples and pears. I've asked Alice to help me pickle and preserve tomorrow, for good conversation makes hot work more bearable. Although, I am certain she agreed more out of curiosity than out of diligence. Pity I shall have no news of our travelers to make it worth her while. Yet we shall have plenty of stew to tide us over." Isabella swirled a spoon through the gravy in her bowl.

"This may be one of the tastiest meals you've ever concocted, dear girl. Our guests may be dining on venison and delicate confectionery tonight, but they have missed a treat nevertheless."

Isabella tried to muster a smile in response to her father's compliment. Finding it more challenging than usual, she peered into her bowl instead. "How does the mare?"

"Rosalie stands tall in her stall this evening. She is restless, certainly a positive sign, yet she still frets and whinnies when I apply pressure to her hindquarters. She is certainly mending, but not yet healed."

Isabella clenched her jaw. "They may be gone before they have the opportunity to enjoy much more of our faire."

"Dear girl, this sullen yet wistful air that's befallen you is not becoming. I watched it descend this morning at breakfast, and it appears to hover still this evening. Last night when you spoke of our guests, your eyes were filled with stars. Tonight those same eyes settle on the ground underneath our feet. What has changed?"

Isabella frowned and chanced a look at her father. She could think of nothing to say; a situation so rare she could scarce remember another instance in her lifetime. "This morning the young noble paid more notice to the ceiling and his silverware than to his breakfast or our company," she muttered.

"And you were likewise silent. Never before have you waited upon the attention of others. You attract attention with your wit."

Isabella shook her head. "My wit does not compare."

"To whom are you comparing yourself? Through what lens are you observing this day?"

Isabella shook her head again, unable to give voice to her thoughts. " _Through the lens of a girl keeping secrets from her dearest father, taken with foreign travel, and meeting with a man in the dark who would not look at her in the daylight,_ " she told herself silently.

"I spoke to the Lord Protector this morning. He was charmed that your wit matches his son's. While I greeted his observation with grace, I want you to know I do not agree with him at all."

Isabella glanced at her father across the table. How could he regard her with such devotion when he did not think her wise enough to converse with the young nobleman?

"I believe it may be possible the young Lord Cullen had the opportunity in seminary to sharpen his mind enough to hold discourse with you. Yet I do not believe it probable, for your mind is ever expanding like your mother told us the skies were over our heads. Likewise, I am quite certain that noble lad has never tended to a garden and orchard, he has never stored food for the winter, or prepared a plate of food. He has never mended his own clothing, nor could he possibly act as my medical assistant, manufacturing healing salves and oils, and tending to miasmas and wounds. You are not wanting in comparison to either of our guests, and that is not opinion, it is fact."

Isabella felt her cheeks warm, basking in the glow of her father's strident praise. Although she knew well she held his regard, it was rare for her father to speak of her so. "Thank you, Father."

"Do not thank me for your wit, dear girl. That is your mother's contribution, to be sure."

Isabella's mouth turned up in a genuine smile. "And now it is you who are too humble."

Charles reached across the table to clasp his daughter's hand. "You see? I have passed down exaggerated humility, while your mother gave you her brilliance. You were born with both traits, so you must overcome my contribution to your character in order to allow that bright light to shine forth from within."

xXxXx

Isabella waited until well after the time her father should have been soundly asleep before creeping from her chamber and tiptoeing through the yard. A faint yellow light flickered from the barn's depths - a sign the noble seminarian had indeed kept his word and was awaiting her presence. _Now_ he was waiting; when she had thought of nothing else all day, while her father toiled, while she set out lunch and dinner, only to receive word their time was better spent in town. Isabella smoothed her nightgown, squared her shoulders, and pushed open the wooden door.

"You came!" the young man quietly cheered. He stood with a brush in hand, grooming Rosalie, who was now standing in her cell.

"Only because I gave my word as my bond. You, sir, are a blackguard! Seducing me with promises so I might lie to my own father! Speaking to me under the cover of darkness only to ignore me in the light of day! I deserve respect; something I didn't doubt until you turned up at my doorstep with exotic tales and sly compliments."

Edward stumbled in an attempt to quickly extricate himself from the horse and stall and to close the distance between them, but Isabella stepped back. She would not fall under his spell, which she assumed may have been due to their proximity the night before. Isabella held onto the doorframe as if for moral support. Edward stopped short of reaching for her and she noticed the light in his eyes that had sparked at the sight of her seemed to flicker and dim.

"Please!" Edward begged. "Last night... I had never… I spoke boldly, openly... possibly immodestly."

Isabella snorted and folded her arms across her chest, but her shoulders relaxed against her own will. "Definitely immodestly," she corrected.

"And this morning I was cowed by my own actions," the youth continued. "You are not a dream, but a woman of flesh and bone. I do not want to compromise your integrity, but I likewise do not want to miss the opportunity to know you better. I am frightened your father is far too proficient a healer, and we may make haste from Bryn Athyn, where my own father had never planned to sojourn."

Isabella cast her eyes on Edward's steed once more. The mare snorted, stomped, and swung her head in Isabella's direction. Rosalie's health had indeed improved.

"I woke this morning likewise wondering if yesterday was but a dream," Isabella admitted. Her impulse was to survey the ground at her feet, but remembering the youth's compliments from the night before she returned to hold his gaze. "I was wrong to agree to this bargain, but it is a bargain I remember well. And while I agreed to visit you here this evening, we did not indicate the length of our conversation. So, if you will excuse me, sir, I would like to get back to my bedchamber, my promise kept and my honor intact. There is much work to do on the morrow."

Isabella tried to ignore the gnawing pit in her stomach as she turned to leave.

"No!"

"Excuse me?" she asked, holding onto the doorframe, arrested by his voice. She found it strangely difficult to catch her breath.

"I did not intend to offend you, maiden."

She could not look at the boy. "Yet here I stand, offended still. You agreed to speak to me only in the privacy afforded by darkness, but during daylight I do not rank worthy of your attention. I did not realize I was compromising my dignity yesterday evening. And as you are a member of the seminary, whether in good standing or not, you should not have put forth such an insolent proposal."

"Please, maiden, I meant no harm, I swear it!"

Isabella could not help it. She turned to glance at the lad, who looked as if her were in physical pain. "And swearing! My lord, I must make haste back to my chamber."

Edward hung his head, resigned. "I release you from your bond. If I am here tomorrow night, you are under no obligation to return, Isabella. "

With the sound of her given name on the man's lips, the girl hesitated.

The lad continued, "I thought of our conversation throughout the course of the day - from the time the sun shivered over the Eastern horizon to the time it sighed and dipped under the Western range. My thoughts on our discourse tracked with its bright light across the sky as my father dragged me from the chamberlain, to the chancellor, to the mayor, and finally to the magistrate for dinner."

The boy spoke quickly, as if he were trying to get all the words out of his mind and mouth before she disappeared forever. Isabella watched the boy as he spoke, memorizing him so she might recall how he looked when he came to meet her under the cover of darkness - how the lamplight blurred the lines where his body ended and the night began, how the ties on his silken undershirt were loosened like last night, how his chest rose and fell quickly, and how his clover-green eyes shone like puddles of firelight.

"When you saw me this morning, you hardly afforded me a proper glance, let alone an address," she countered.

Edward winced as if she'd struck him. "I am quite... shy."

"And how can you be shy when last night's request bordered on insolence?"

"And you agreed to it. I believe we may both at fault, maiden."

"Isabella, my lord."

"Edward, kind maiden."

"Edward." She sighed, knowing she had given up something with his name.

"Please accept my apology and know that your queer ideas were never far from my thoughts all this livelong day."

Isabella found it difficult to look the young man in the face, so chose to focus on his mare, instead. Rosalie was a handsome animal, and the glimmer of her lustrous coat was evidence she'd been well-cared for. The reason she had the opportunity to speak to this young nobleman was due to the tenderness of his heart. Isabella sighed again. It was as if she couldn't catch her breath in the young man's presence. "Rosalie does look quite well," she murmured. "She was lucky to have taken ill where she did, for you found a good horse-healer in my father. The way she is prancing in her stall does indeed give indication that we may only have tonight to converse."

Isabella stepped tentatively towards Rosalie, who snorted and shook her mane.

"I am quite relieved to see her standing," Edward agreed.

"I do not think we could sit in her stall this evening; we might be trampled," the girl murmured, glancing at the youth who had come to stand by her side. The corners of his mouth quivered, as if he were tamping down a smile.

"You will stay?" he asked.

"You will tell stories of your travels?"

"And I will tell you about Rosalie," Edward added, his smile slowly growing.

Isabella narrowed her eyes.

Edward chuckled and a smile finally broke free across his face. "And of my travels. And you will tell me of the journeys you have made in your mind."

"On one condition, friend. You cannot ignore me on the morrow. I will keep your confidence about our evening discussions, but I must merit your attention during sunny hours as well. I am not something so illicit that I must be shunned."

"You may be many things, but you are certainly not illicit. You have my word, maiden."

"Isabella, my lord."

"Edward."

"Yes, Edward," Isabella murmured.

Isabella and Edward smiled at one another. Rosalie snorted and stomped.

"Shall we take shelter from your slave's dancing hooves?" Isabella asked.

The two picked their way over crisp straw and found respite in the passage between the stalls. Seated against slats, Isabella's feet tucked beneath her, Edward's knees drawn to his chin, they each glanced about the barn, searching for a safe place to rest their gaze.

"I feel trapped," Isabella admitted. "I cannot lower my face. My originality lies in the fact that I do not show you my crown."

Edward smiled. "That is the least of what marks you as special. Please take pleasure in glancing at the hay beneath us - for I want nothing more in this moment than to be assured of your comfort."

Isabella did indeed glance at the straw, although she could not associate the word comfort with her current condition. The rough wood of the stall pressed against her spine, dry straw scratched at her ankles and poked through the linen of her nightgown. Her heart beat rapidly, and her skin tingled as the night air swept through the barn. She pulled at the sleeves of her nightgown in an attempt to cover her hands and keep them warm.

"Where should we begin?" Edward asked.

" _Where indeed_?" Isabella wondered, anxious that Rosalie's robust health might leave only one night to speak to the boy about his travels. "Tell me of the most dramatic land you've visited."

The boy's eyes glittered. "That's easy - The Golden Sea, just beyond the Sunset Mountains."

"Where is that from my homestead?"

"Fourteen days due south on horseback," Edward replied. "Quite close in proximity, but another world entirely from Bryn Athyn."

Isabella leaned forward and sat on her knees. She'd heard rumors of the region, but had never met another soul who had journeyed to where their kingdom met the sea. Edward smiled, pleased by her obvious excitement.

"The Sunset Mountains are golden, covered with tall grasses always blowing with gusts of ocean air, and dotted with puffy white balls of sheep. Dogs run after their herds, playing in the seabreeze, delighting in their work, leaving the shepherds to rest in the sunshine. The shepherd's faces are weathered and brown, and they wear many layers of clothing to protect from the wind off the sea, but their words are not weary. They were the ones who directed us to the shore.

"The mountains are encircled by a dense green forest that seemed an impenetrable barrier. But with careful instruction, we found a small winding path leading to an eternal sea of the deepest blue, stretching as far as the eye could see in either direction, and continuing to the edge of the earth."

"Certainly you must know the earth is round!" Isabella interjected.

"It is a figure of speech," Edward protested with a roll of his eyes.

"Good, you are a man of science. Sadly, that is another strike against your standing in the seminary."

Edward's eyes twinkled. "I do not believe religious philosophy must conflict with matters of science. I could speak more about this belief if you are done hearing tales of my travels." Edward pursed his lips and sat back against the stall.

"Oh no! Please, go on!"

"Because if you would prefer a philosophical discussion…"

"No, please. I shan't interrupt."

Edward cleared his throat and paused to stretch his arms. He cracked his knuckles. He glanced over his shoulder at Rosalie, before turning back to face the impatient girl in front of him. "What was I saying?"

"I shall write and tell the seminary you are truly evil!" Isabella practically growled.

"You'd like me to continue?" Edward asked.

Isabella crossed her arms over her chest and glowered.

"Right, then." Edward chuckled. "The forest on the lowlands was crisscrossed with small streams full of golden fish, bushes full to falling over with deep purple berries, small game that we roasted to crackling over the fire that we set to keep warm through the night. Over our heads, the wind hurtled off the water and rushed through the tops of the trees with a roar like an oncoming army. Indeed, the forest was low due to the elemental, unyielding tempest. Any tree that dared grow through the canopy was pushed sideways, its trunk bowed away from the sea, gnarled, bent and limbless on the seaward side.

"We pressed on toward the shore the next day; the soil underfoot gave way to sparkling sand and the brush turned dry, bleached, and thorny. Finally, we broke through the treeline and all of our senses were struck. The gale off the water was stunning; we were hit by a staggering force filled with water, salt and sand. It had a weight and a bite, and chapped our skin where it struck. The sun shone so brightly, magnified as it glanced off the water and speckling sand, that we all shaded our eyes and strained to see what was before us. The sea was like a monster, both blinding gold and the deepest blue, infinite and powerful. It pounded the shore relentlessly, foaming and frothing, and pulling at the earth underneath it, reclaiming the rocks that littered the sand. On either side of the inlet rose jagged sandstone cliffs, dotted with gnarled evergreens, meeting the waves in a challenge of land against sea."

"It all seems far too severe for living creatures to survive," Isabella mused.

"Would you believe, though, the men who dwell in that region were not merely surviving there, they reveled in the landscape around them?"

"How so?" Isabella asked, spellbound.

"This was where they played when not at work in the fields, when not shepherding their charges. They anchored thick, knotted ropes to the large boulders on the shore and young men held on as they ventured out into the water. They ducked and dived beneath the waves, tussling and fighting amongst themselves as they likewise fought off drowning. Some were able to make their way to a wooden platform anchored to the floor of the sea, beyond the breakers. They would clamber on, then dive off and aim for a rope which would guide them past danger and back to the shore."

"What of the women?" Isabella asked.

"What of them?"

"You spoke of the men. Were there no women in this wild playground called the Golden Sea?"

"Yes, there were women. They went barefoot, without even stockings! They had ties on their skirts allowing them to be hitched passed their knees as they walked the shoreline, watching their men."

"Their knees!" Isabella laughed, pulling up the edge of her nightgown, showing a hint of skin where she kneeled. "The scandal!" Glancing at the young man's reddening face, she lowered her nightgown and smoothed it in place. "If I was there, I would have struck out into the ocean with the men."

"To be smashed back into the boulders along the shore! I should hope your father would counsel you otherwise in order to keep your body intact."

"I am a strong swimmer, sir. I fear you judge me due to my sex."

Edward surveyed the girl in front of him. "On the contrary, I judge you by your size."

"And yet smaller fish than I manage to live their days in the ocean without being smashed to pieces."

"You compare yourself to a fish?" Edward laughed. "Where are your fins?"

"Fine, I may be no fish, but it is impertinent for you to judge my strength as a swimmer without ever seeing me in water!"

"I would like to see that," Edward quietly admitted. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat. "Until I had cause to jump in to your rescue."

"And I suppose you assume yourself a stronger swimmer than I? Due to what? Your inherited jewels?"

Edward's eyes widened and Isabella gasped. She pressed her back against the wood of the stall.

"The women didn't swim," Edward said simply. He peered out the barn door into the darkness.

"Well, behind our family's land lies a river, both swift and deep," Isabella explained. "My father taught me to swim as a youngster, a gift after long hot days laboring in our garden. I bested him years ago, and often yearn for the feeling of my limbs straining against a vigorous current, swimming strong and true for the opposite shore."

Isabella fell into silence, feeling anew that refreshing freedom from the days of her youth. She remembered the rising sense of excitement when she and her father would pick their way through the forest beyond their yard, winding through animal paths to the banks of Swift River. He'd point out medicinal herbs along the way, and she'd collect precious pebbles and pink flowering weeds to fill her pockets. While her limbs might falter on land, in water she felt their strength and certainty. Her father would make games of their swim, throwing twigs and leaves for retrieval, and took great pride in her bravery and strength while afloat. More recently though, as she'd come to hide her body from her father, she found reason upon reason to keep from the riverbank. She worried his face might blanche as she emerged from the waters in her clinging shift, how she might cover her body in shame, how his mien would surely fall. Eventually, Charles grew tired of asking, and that time in their lives moved from present into the past.

"Perhaps I shall ask your father's opinion, then," Edward suggested.

"My father hasn't seen me swim in many months."

"I dare say my father has never seen me swim at all. He would no doubt pass judgement anyway - judging me the least capable of my family."

"Your father may judge you, but he cares enough for you that he would set out on horseback to try to make your dreams come true."

"Perchance he travels with me to make his dreams my own. Your father holds your thoughts in much higher regard. I heard him speaking with my own father this morning. His praise was the type often saved for a firstborn son."

Isabella shrugged. "My father has no son."

"Have I said something wrong, maiden?" Edward asked, searching the young woman's eyes. "Your mood has dimmed. I was only poking fun. I'm sure if you say it, you must be a fine swimmer. I am not here to trouble you tonight."

The youth's presence had been troubling since he walked up the lane to her home, but the heartsickness she felt at that moment had another source entirely. "Despite your differences, you speak freely to your father," she murmured.

"I speak freely to all, my father included. I believe he might wish it otherwise."

"I envy your speech, sir. Of late, a space has grown between my father and me; one I cannot breach."

"And then I committed you to secrecy. I haven't helped matters."

Isabella stood and wrapped her arms around herself as she walked toward the barn door. "I've not kept my end of the bargain this evening." She gazed at the starlight above, and the constellations shimmered back as if in response. "You've told of your travels, while my mind has turned petty, moored to the mundane."

Edward rose to his feet, but kept his distance from the girl. The lamplight outlined her silhouette in flickering gold. Her untethered hair blew in the gentle wind like the nighttime grasses on Sunset Mountain. He knew the bonds of fealty could be troubling, but hadn't imagined this maiden struggled as well. Her household had all the appearances of an idyllic existence. If her presence at the breakfast table this morning proved she was not a dream, this sudden disquieting mood proved her thoughts hadn't sprung up perfect like a prophet, but she was likewise learning as she grew.

Edward gathered his courage and filled the empty space in the barnyard door and gazed at the silver twinkling lights filtering through the treetops above. "I find when I am troubled by earthly matters, I am often relieved when I reflect on the power of the heavens," Edward suggested.

"The power of the heavens?" Isabella asked, turning to look at the boy.

Edward nodded. Isabella leaned against the doorjamb and returned her gaze to the stars. "There is undoubtedly power in the heavens - a force keeping the skies in orderly motion. Sometimes I think I would like to learn those equations; the physics that command the movement of the stars."

"You think of it like mathematics?" Edward asked.

"And why not?"

"In truth, I can think of no reason," Edward admitted.

Isabella sighed. "Sometimes I dream that if we could measure those forces, we would understand not only the motions of the celestial bodies overhead, but also the trajectory of even the smallest things; like whether your horse's wound might mend. Perhaps all things writ large are at work on a very small scale, one we just cannot see. If we could encode the rules laid out on a grand scale, it could guide us in matters both big and small."

"I don't disagree."

"You don't?" Isabella asked, chancing another glance at the boy as he wandered into the barnyard. Isabella followed, wrapping her arms around herself in protection from the chilly autumn air.

"You think of it as something to solve," Edward remarked. He stepped in circles, surveying the sky overhead.

"Why not?" Isabella asked. "Isn't everything something to solve?"

"But I wonder," Edward continued, "You speak of things distant and large, like the heavens above our heads, and things quite small, like the wound on a mare's hindquarters. You might be omitting from your theorem what is all around you – the middling things that actually mean the most."

"Excuse me?" Isabella asked.

Edward cast his arms out from his body, still slowly circling. "What about the forces setting you and me in motion?"

"Motion? Like spinning?"

Edward stopped and Isabella's form swam before him, her edges blurred as if she were a spirit. "What about love?"

"Love?" she gasped.

"Really! Think about your love for your father and his for you. Doesn't it impact your actions? Aren't your lives different for love of your departed mother? Taking your theory, love might change the wounded mare, and love would be one of the powerful forces to set the skies in motion. Love has the power to change. Small love is prayer and love changing the skies is another way to describe the God I honor each night before bed."

"Oh, I don't know! That is not how it's described in the scripture."

Edward took a step closer to the girl. Her form shown like that of an angel, gilded by lamplight, perchance a fallen star. "The scripture is like a lantern, it casts a light all around you, allowing you to see."

Like Edward could see her slim shadow through lightweight linen, like Isabella could finally see the holiness of the man in her midst.

"I believe your queerness has virtue, Edward," Isabella said quietly.

His smile spoke volumes and unsettled her senses. "Have you struck on the equation for these forces you speak of?" he asked.

Isabella shook her head. "If I had, would I know the measure of your God?"

"Perhaps you'd have found a cipher for your soul," he suggested, echoing her words from the first day they'd met.

* * *

 **A/N: One of those middling things that means a lot to me is your review... This fic updates Fridays. Until then, I hope you find something you love that moves you. Those things really are the best. ~M**


	4. Chapter 4

**Twilight is not owned by me**

 **This chapter wouldn't have posted without my beta SueBee0619, and my pre-readers Robsmyyummy Cabanaboy & Nicffwhisperer.**

 **These ladies manage to make me feel more confident while simultaneously pushing me to be a better writer.**

 **Y'all are da bomb!**

 **~M**

* * *

Chapter 4

Isabella drifted from dreaming to wakeful, warm and secure in her bed as she contentedly recalled Edward's tales of Sunset Mountain, the Cloud Jungle, and the lonely inhabitants of the vast Roving Desert. She'd explained her imaginings about time and space, and a new idea she'd had that they might create other worlds with their intention.

" _For instance, the world where men carry their loads, women loosen their tresses, and horses lounge by the roadside," Isabella suggested with a giggle._

" _We created it last night?" Edward asked._

" _Exactly!" Isabella declared with an affirmative nod of her head that sent her hair tumbling in waves._

" _Heaven help us." Edward laughed._

Isabella smiled and curled on her side, comfortable underneath a downy quilt. She'd traded recipes for her father's healing salves for tales from Jasper's most recent trek across the Distant Sea.

" _His fiancee does not speak a word of English."_

" _Is she beautiful?" Isabella asked._

 _Edward peered at her across the barn. "She is not to my taste, but she is not to be my bride."_

" _Yes, your bride… Did you find any prospects on your travels today?"_

" _I would have to change the world before it would be possible."_

" _That's easy enough. Let us close our eyes and imagine it." And they lay back in the straw with their eyes closed to the stars. The autumn air had been so cool under the midnight blue sky, but she'd basked in the warmth nonetheless - the warmth of the young nobleman's presence and his praise._

The maiden nuzzled into her pillow and remembered how the boy had talked about his Center City home as she lay in semi-slumber. And she almost heard him speaking distinctly, distantly, _presently_...

Isabella shot up in bed and opened her eyes. Lemon yellow light slanted through her window, and men's voices carried from the front of the house. It was hours past daybreak; she'd slept through the cock's crow and the sounds of the household as it came to life. As she raced round her chamber, tugging, tying and lacing her clothing and pinning up her hair, she could clearly hear voices from the kitchen along with the clatter of pots and pans.

She quickly made her way down the hall, past heavy hanging cloaks and empty bed chambers. Lord Cullen's voice grew louder, echoing against the stones. "... could simply have asked to spend an afternoon with Henrietta."

"T'is much different, Father," she heard Edward reply.

Charles Swan cut in. "Isabella said…"

"What did I say?" she asked, rushing across the kitchen threshold, nearly out of breath.

Three sets of eyes focused upon her and her cheeks warmed as she offered a quick curtsy.

Carlisle Cullen gave a quick nod of his head from the bench where he sat with a steaming mug of chicory tea. "My mistake. An afternoon with Henrietta would not be the same at all."

Charles cleared his throat. "Good morning, Daughter. Are you well rested?" he asked, standing over a pot of bubbling mush on the kitchen hearth.

"I should hope so. I haven't slept thus since I was a child."

"'Tis no wonder. You have been waiting on us day and night," Edward offered as he rose from his seat by his father's side.

Isabella's cheeks grew warmer still as she turned her attention to the young man who was beaming at her openly, clearly heeding her request from the night before. His fitted, red tunic nicely offset the green of his eyes and complimented his pinking cheeks, while his gray velvet breeches blended with the old wood of the kitchen table. The warmth she'd just felt underneath her bedcovers returned one hundred-fold but without the comfort. This particular warmth left her ill at ease and aching, yet it was not entirely unpleasant.

"Good morning, maiden," the lad murmured with a small bow.

"You said Alice would be here today to help you put food up for winter?" Charles cut in.

Isabella was uncertain where to look. "Um, yes, Father. She should be by presently."

"Then it is settled," Charles replied with a gracious nod to the lord.

"Excuse me, sir?" Isabella asked. She did not appreciate settling anything without intention. "Alice Brandon's assistance was arranged before the sun set yesterday. What has been settled anew by it this morning?"

Lord Cullen hastily pushed his bench from the table as he rose to address the maiden. "My son has asked your father's permission to learn how you manage your homestead."

Isabella gasped. "Indeed?"

"The lad has his mind set on it. He's spoken to me of nothing else all morning."

"Yesterday my father and I attended to larger-scale matters, like the system of justice in your hamlet. Today I would like to give equal weight to matters on a smaller scale, like the system employed on your farm."

"I assure you with the impending winter, these are no small matters to those of us inhabiting this dwelling," Isabella replied.

"It was once explained to me that scale is irrelevant, for there is but one power presiding over everything." The boy smiled, obviously quite proud of himself. Isabella narrowed her eyes. That was not what she'd meant at all.

"Your musings give away your divinical course of study," Charles offered in compliment, spooning thick gruel into wooden bowls. "Indeed, our Friar Randolph offered a similar message to the congregation a fortnight ago."

"T'is actually my travels that brought me to that observation," Edward countered with a small nod toward Isabella.

"No doubt they are a worthy pursuit, then," Charles offered. "Isabella, daughter, take a seat. We've made porridge and blackened bread over the fire."

"We?" she asked.

Edward made haste to pull a chair for her from the table. "The first part of my studies for the day."

Lord Cullen slowly shook his head. "The boy's mind is a virtual workshop for queer ideas. We've traveled the kingdom to learn of mush and bread."

Isabella tentatively settled herself across from the lord as Edward sat back down next to his father. She wasn't accustomed to being seated with nobility and felt overexposed, fully on display given the boy's expressed wishes to study her actions all day long. This feeling was magnified by Lord Cullen's open scrutiny and Edward's proud smile. She wondered whether the brocade of her dress was too worn, or whether the muslin of her shift had yellowed as it dried on the line. She lowered her eyes and gazed at her lap. Her nails needed trimming. The bow she'd tied at the bottom of her bodice was uneven and she tugged at it anxiously. She worried what her father might think if he noticed her fretting over her appearance. Charles placed a bowl before her and she jumped at the clatter of wood against wood.

"It's not as fine as the food you serve," Charles offered in apology.

Isabella looked about. "And the bread?"

"The blackened portion of the menu was a mistake," Edward allowed. "T'is better uneaten."

Carlisle chuckled. "Yes, good luck with your tutelage today."

"Tell us, Edward, what else have you found on your travels?" Charles asked as he took a seat next to his daughter.

The boy leaned in, on the edge of his chair. "It's been an extraordinary experience, Master Swan. There are fantastic customs and practices from one end of our lands to the other. The phenomenon I've come to appreciate the most though, are the civil similarities we keep in common. How we hold tight to the bonds of heart and hearth, we cheer in the completion of an honest day's labor, children take joy at physical exertion. And how all ideas about heaven seem to lead back to the same God I hold dear."

"And how all pay great fealty to the King," Lord Cullen added. He grabbed his mug and held it aloft. "To the King!"

The others scrambled for mugs of their own. "To the King!" they replied, before settling into awkward silence.

Isabella tried to inconspicuously chew her gruel. The grains were too firm; it would have benefited from a lower flame and more cream. And when she chanced to look up from her breakfast, she was confronted with Edward's unguarded attention. He smiled and nodded, openly pleased with himself. Isabella had to fight the irrational desire to crawl underneath the table.

"Now, how does the mare?" Lord Cullen asked.

"She's made quite the recovery," the boy hastily cut in before Charles had a chance to offer his assessment.

"Yes, you've kept close watch," Carlisle replied, glancing at his son out of the corner of his eye. "My son spent the night with the creature. Would you believe the boy crept into our chamber just before daybreak?"

Isabella choked on her gruel.

"Is that so?" Charles asked. "Then we should make you a pallet. Surely we can provide better accommodation than the barnyard floor."

"His love for the horse is uncommon," the lord remarked, shaking his head and giving a roll of his eyes.

"Edward demonstrates love for all things. I cannot agree every creature might possess a soul, but common regard for the beasts that live among us is quite refreshing," Isabella interjected.

Carlisle and Charles took pause to survey the maiden, who found sudden interest in the undercooked grains in her bowl. Humors rushed to color Edward's cheeks a shade redder than his tunic.

"Good morning!" came a singsong voice from just outside the kitchen as the back door clattered open. "How are you all this glorious mor -"

Earthenware jars, pots and ladles crashed to the floor of the kitchen, and a small, shocked girl with large eyes that matched the rich brown brocade of her gown was left standing in their midst. Her hair was covered with a moss-green handkerchief, and her dress was shielded with a smock that was cleaner and crisper than it had been since the day it was first sewn.

"Oh, no, Alice!" Isabella gasped.

"Alice? The chaperone?" Carlisle asked. "This little slip of a girl?"

Charles Swan hastened to the doorway, picking his way carefully through the girl's fallen kitchenware. "Alice Brandon, have you met our noble guests?" he asked, by way of introduction. She shook her head as he took her hand and led her to the table where the lord and his son made haste to stand. Alice curtseyed and blushed and held tight to the back of Isabella's chair.

"Lord Cullen, Edward Cullen - this is our valued neighbor, Alice Brandon. Her father's homestead lies over yonder hill. You would have passed by the Brandon's orchard as you journeyed into town."

"And you help on this farm as well?" the lord asked.

Alice nodded frantically and Isabella worried her friend might faint. She hadn't seen Alice take a breath since she'd entered the room. It appeared the noblemen might have had the same breathless-inducing effect on all young women.

"We might have more hands to make light today's work," Isabella explained. Alice glanced at her friend, her eyes wide with anticipation. "Sir Edward would like... to pickle."

"Pickle?" Alice gasped.

"It's an honor," Edward interjected with a small bow, which sent Alice to curtseying some more. The boy made haste to the doorway to gather the scattered kitchen utensils. Isabella could not help but shake her head at the absurdity of it all. She pushed out her chair and looked about for her apron. The silliness of the situation did not change that there was much work to conquer, and she'd started hours too late.

"Will you be joining our pickle party, Lord Cullen?" Isabella asked, collecting dishes from the table. "Or should I set out some cushions for you to comfortably observe?"

"I'm afraid I must leave it to the ladies and my light-slippered lad. I have edicts to review with the magistrate, and personal business to attend to this evening. I trust you'll not work the boy too hard, will you, maiden? While he might heft mountains with his mind, his hands are unused to the scullery."

"Just the three of us, then?" Isabella asked. "Father -" Her voice was nearly drowned out by hoofbeats rapidly approaching their home.

"Master Swan! Master Swan!" a young male voice frantically called out from the yard.

Alice startled. "Is that?"

"Ben," Isabella confirmed.

"The Fallowell baby?" Alice asked. "Oh dear."

Alice and Isabella had known Ben Fallowell all of their lives. As an impetuous child he ran headlong through the great woods hunting imaginary dragons, and as a youth he made war with the other boys from the hamlet and bragged about how one day he would leave Bryn Athyn to join the King's army. When Ben fell in love with Angela Weber though, he took up cobbling with his father and built a small cottage on family land. Hardly a year later he had both wife and child. The abrupt change in the trajectory of Ben's life was taken in stride and received with joy by the inhabitants of Bryn Athyn, as if it were both lucky and inevitable. Yet it left Isabella feeling disquieted.

Charles made haste to the door and Isabella was not far behind, her skirts brushing past Edward on her way. Mr. Fallowell was panting as he jumped from his gray mare, his perspiring face flushed and frightened. "It's Angela," he gasped, bent double, struggling for air.

"Isabella, would you fetch Mr. Fallowell some water?" Charles asked.

"I do not need your water, sir, only your care," he pled as he straightened and reached for the older man's hand. "Angela is hot to the touch and listless. She cannot suckle or even hold our babe. Can you come, Master Swan?"

"How long has she been thus afflicted?" Charles asked.

"You attended to her yesterday morning and saw that she was tired, naturally spent after the birth bed. As we moved toward nightfall, she was more tired still, which was still logical to us all. But through the night she wouldn't stir when the babe cried out and then the fevers came. We applied cold compresses. We kept her uncovered. I don't know what else we can do."

Charles led the young man to a garden bench, where he collapsed, spent with emotional fatigue and lack of sleep. He held his head in his hands and shook as he silently cried.

"We'll see her through this, my lad, but you must take care. You're a father now"

Ben Fallowell glanced up at Charles, tears streaming down his cheeks. "My daughter cries for her mother and I cannot soothe or feed her. I cannot lose them both. What good is being a father without a wife or a babe?"

Charles clutched the young man's hand in his own. "Do not count them dead before their time, or do not come searching for my aid. Fathering a child is sweet rapture, but acting as one requires both ferocity and faith. Steel yourself, lad, while I pack my bags. You cannot return to your family in this state.

"Daughter," Charles asked, "would you run and ready Riley?"

Isabella dashed across the dusty yard, the crisp autumn wind blowing through her skirts and pulling tendrils of her hair from her bun. She could hear the young man openly weeping where he was left. It was as if the boy she'd known had been erased with an adult with an entirely new set of priorities and attendant fears. He'd reveled in the idea of warfare but was now sobbing in her kitchen garden. Now Angela was a mother and dangerously ill. A piece of her childhood was transformed, leaving in its place a pair of struggling young adults.

Rushing into the barn, Isabella found Riley already tied up in the aisle between the stalls. Edward jogged from the back of the barn carrying a blanket and saddle.

"What are you doing, sir?" Isabella asked.

Edward did not answer her question, for it was obvious. "I left for the barn through the back door so as not to interrupt."

"It's Angela," the maiden explained. She helped to right the saddle, then went for the cinch and bridle.

"Missus Fallowell?" Edward asked.

Isabella simply nodded as she tightened the cinch.

"You talk often about your father's skill. She is in good hands."

Isabella shook her head. "Seeing him thus… Ben… Mr. Fallowell. How life changes."

Edward untied the horse and nodded to Isabella to work the bridle. "Sometimes earthly matters track swifter than the stars. When the earth outpaces the speed of the heavens, it leaves good souls struggling in its wake."

Isabella paused, bridle in hand. "Perhaps those on earth simply move when they shouldn't."

"Mr. Fallowell?" Edward asked.

"Mr. Fallowell… _you_." Isabella glanced purposefully at the lad.

"Because I helped with your horse?" Riley stomped as if in response.

"Because you proposed to my father we spend the day alone together."

"But maiden, I am honoring you with my presence as _you_ requested."

"Your presence should honor me?" Isabella asked, tossing the reins to Edward.

Edward tugged at the leather straps. "I told you last night I would like to know you better, and I do not wish to make a secret of it. You said you would like me to speak with you in the light of day. I steeled myself all night long to do as much. My father is uncomfortable with new ideas, and this was not simple to arrange."

"I asked you to speak to me, sir, not spend the day. What will people say?"

"I didn't figure you a peon to propriety. I am a seminarian. People will say you and your father honored the unusual wishes of a visiting noble. Is proper etiquette the only reason you are disquieted by my presence here?"

This wasn't a question Isabella could answer. "And you truly _yearn_ to pickle?" she replied.

"I want to know of your life, maiden, whatever it entails. As to what I yearn for…" Edward shook his head and closed his eyes. "I can hardly perceive everything I might want. I discover something I might yearn for with each new hamlet, with each new barn. It was just days ago when I learned of my appetite to know more of your thoughts, and after two evenings my desire has grown stronger still."

When Edward opened his eyes, green and bright and staring straight into hers, Isabella shivered as if she were standing before the nobleman naked in the rain. Dust blew through the air born on stormy wind, a line of ducklings waddled passed the barnyard door, and hens clucked in their coop. It all swirled around her while she stood with a boy as if they were the epicenter of the heavens above, as if they would never have to move again for life would continue around them.

In that moment, Isabella yearned, although she knew not what for. One moment she was angry for being ignored, and the next she was upset with an abundance of attention. All the while her body ached as if it were being slowly consumed by a fiery ember that left her overwarm and ill at ease. She yearned to be free from her whipsawing emotions, while she likewise yearned to stoke the burning ember, to make it erupt into a flame.

"Friend! Bella!" Alice called."Your father has pressing need of his horse!" Footsteps approached the barn. Edward's chest rose and fell. Isabella found it difficult to break from his gaze.

"What do you want, Isabella?" he asked.

Those same small footsteps screeched to a halt at the barn door. "Oh, and lord, sir, Edward," Alice stuttered.

"I want to accommodate you, my lord," Isabella said with a curtsy. "So we shall give you the run of our land and work you as hard as your hands can handle. We shall make the most of this blustery day."

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 **A/N: Helloooo out there to everyone at TFMU in Vegas and at RWA in Orlando! Thanks for reading & as always, thanks ever so much for your reviews. **

**Isabella's indecision made me feel indecisive about this chapter, but I'm cool & confident about chapter 5, which will post next Friday as usual. So follow this fic, find me on facebook at belladonna . fanfiction, and take a moment to remember that feeling when you were first flustered by a boy or a girl. Sigh.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Twilight is not owned by me.**

 **I cannot use punctuation as well as my amazing beta, SueBee0619.**

 **I'm hopeless without the pre-reading skills of Nicffwhisperer and Robsmyyummy Cabanaboy.**

 **I can't pickle worth a dime.**

 **But I could write about this Edward & Bella all night long.**

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 **Chapter 5**

Chapter 5

After Master Swan and Isabella dashed from the house to speak to Ben Fallowell, Edward Cullen carefully deposited the fallen kitchen supplies on the counter and slipped out the back door, leaving Alice alone with Lord Cullen. The lord scrutinized the girl casually and openly, with privilege born of noble birth. Alice attempted to put the pickling supplies in order but found concentration difficult. She nervously rooted about the cupboards for dried herbs to flavor the pickle. She fidgeted as she surveyed the lower shelves looking for additional pots and pans. All the while, the lord continued his casual appraisal until Alice was driven to distraction. How did this lord's servants ever manage to think straight under his openly watchful eye? Alice took a deep breath, tried her best to arrange a smiling countenance, and faced the nobleman head on.

"My lord," she murmured with a curtsy.

Lord Cullen raised his mug and nodded. "Yes, yes, good day to you, girl." He grinned and Alice grinned right back and tried not to tremble. "Might I make a suggestion?" he finally asked.

"Yes, please, my lord."

"If you're going to make a maid of my boy, the first step should be keeping him in the kitchen." Lord Cullen laughed, his cheeks pinking and eyes twinkling.

Alice was just trying to determine whether she should go after the boy, when Master Swan returned from the kitchen garden in a rush. "Excuse me, Alice, Lord Cullen. I've a patient in need of urgent care. I'll be off in just a moment."

"Yes, yes, don't tarry on my account," the lord offered. He stood and tossed his napkin on the table. "I should be off presently as well. I've business in town I'd prefer to conclude before this evening."

Alice curtsied some more as Lord Cullen departed, then glanced about at the empty room where she'd been left. Crockery was piled haphazardly on the counter, and the sticky remains of gruel coated countless bowls and the large black pot over the hearth. Some had splattered on the stone floor. A loaf of burnt bread was halfway hidden behind a canister on the shelf. And someone could be heard sobbing outside the door which Master Swan had left ajar. It didn't take much to draw Alice out of doors where she found Ben Fallowell bent with grief, his body shaking as he wiped at his eyes. Ben didn't appear to hear her approach, but his sobs quieted noticeably after she took a seat with him on the bench.

"Master Swan will make it alright, Ben. I know of no better healer."

Ben looked up at Alice with tearstained cheeks. "But what if it can not be made right? What if it is too late?"

"Then you will do your best to find your way through, just like you always have. Just like when you fought against the odds and always ended up the last man standing in those war games we played on the hills."

Unlike her friend, Alice didn't find it difficult to understand the change in Ben - from a brash boy with dreams of battle to a cobbler with a young wife and son. The world was a study in adapting to change; people were born and died, seasons bled from one to the next. Her father had loved her mother and now loved someone new. She thought she'd had all of the younger siblings she could handle, and now she had some more.

"Who does the babe resemble?" she asked.

Ben smiled through his tears. "Her mother, for certain. She has Angela's eyes and her dark curls. Who would have thought a babe could be born with so much hair?"

"All of the little ones at my home were born near bald. I would like to see your girl… when Angela is well, of course."

A sob escaped from Ben's mouth and he pursed his lips, determined not to cry anew.

"You know, Ben, my stepmother couldn't feed my youngest brother. He was born in the middle of the dark winter, and we hadn't enough to eat. We made due though, and my brother is now strong as a little bear." Ben looked up at her again, the light of interest in his eyes. Taking his cue, Alice slowly listed off ingredients to make infant formula, repeating each item several times over so Ben would well remember.

Presently, Master Swan emerged from the house with his medical bag and a worn traveling cloak slung over his arm. He nodded approvingly at the dry-eyed and determined young man who sat upon the bench. "I see you're ready, my boy."

Ben smiled at Alice and squeezed her hand. "Thank you."

"Say hello to her for me, Ben. I'll visit when she is well."

"Alice, would you check on Riley?" Master Swan asked. "I don't know what's keeping Isabella."

After a few more words of parting and a quick jog to the barn, Alice found Edward Cullen calling Isabella by her given name. They both gazed at each other from either side of Master Swan's horse - as if there were no urgent medical necessities in all the world, save for whatever was urgently passing between the two.

"Friend! Bella! Your father has pressing need of his horse!"

The spell between the nobleman and her friend broke like a shattering mirror, and Isabella promised the young man as much work as his uncalloused hands could handle. It was a queer promise, not one Alice would have extended to visiting nobility, but Isabella had always had an unusual air about her. Alice was used to her strange ideas and fantastical stories, but she had never known her friend to be rude.

"I'll take Riley up," Isabella volunteered, holding her hands out for the reins. Edward silently handed them off with a small bow and watched the maiden lead the horse up the path to the front of the house, while Alice unobtrusively watched Edward. The boy appeared tall and sturdy, just as Isabella had described, but her friend failed to mention the way he watched her every movement with such earnest interest. Once the girl was out of sight, Edward turned his attention back to the barn and blushed when he saw Alice and remembered she'd been standing there.

"My lord," Alice offered with a curtsy. "Should we ready your father's horse? He's to be off soon as well."

"Right. Yes, of course. That's a smart idea, Miss Brandon." No, he didn't use her given name like he'd addressed her friend.

Alice and Edward both started toward Lord Cullen's gelding, nearly bumping into one another.

"Should I?" Edward asked.

"Or I?"

They both started and stopped again.

"I'll get some brushes instead," Alice suggested.

"Right. I'll see to James."

Edward led the horse into the passage and tied him up as Alice tried to dispel feelings of gnawing discomfort. Isabella had mentioned the boy's unusual customs; perhaps part of her assessment was due to his easy familiarity. Or maybe he was simply a quick study at the priesthood. After all, she could speak of almost anything to Friar Randolph. Alice hurried back to the young lord and his father's horse, intent to start over, instead of judging the boy.

"I found supplies," Alice remarked as she returned with some brushes and a blanket. She walked around the tall animal to find Edward while he walked round to meet her, so they ended up on opposite sides of the horse.

"Wait… I thought -"

Alice laughed. "Just a moment!"

Alice dashed around the horse once more while Edward looked for her on the other side. The horse stomped and shook his head, excited by the motion around him. Once again, Alice and Edward stood across from one another.

Edward chuckled. "Maybe just hand it over," he suggested.

"I can't reach," she explained, standing on tiptoe along-side the large animal, waiving a brush over her head. The horse's withers stood a head taller than Alice. Edward easily reached over the animal's topline and plucked the brush from Alice's hand as he peered down at her.

"Bella mentioned you were tall," Alice remarked, glancing up at the boy.

"Bella?"

"Miss Swan," Alice clarified.

"Bella… right," Edward remarked as if he was trying the nickname on for size; as if Isabella was his cousin or childhood playmate. He certainly was not either, but it wasn't Alice's immediate concern. She set about grooming her portion of the gelding, the animal large enough that she almost forgot about the nobleman on the other side.

"Did she offer any other musings?" Edward asked, startling Alice.

"Excuse me?"

"Bella."

Alice huffed. "Bella?" There was familiarity, and then there was the use of a nickname.

"I mean, Miss Swan. You call her Bella, right?"

"Yes. We've known one another our whole lives."

"I can see how it would take that long."

Alice paused, brush in hand, quite certain this boy's feelings went further than devotion to the clergy. Had Isabella been purposefully elusive when she failed to mention this, or could her mind simply have been caught up in the clouds? Sometimes Isabella Swan was positively impossible. "She said your eyes are green and you love your horse," Alice admitted. Really, Isabella hadn't said much more.

"She doesn't lie," came the boy's reply.

Alice glanced about the barn looking for the beloved mare that Isabella thought had stolen the boy's heart. The horse stood quietly in the corner of the stall closest to the barnyard door. She had a lovely, lustrous coat and flowing mane, but by the way she hung her head in stillness, Alice would have thought she were sleeping if she hadn't noticed the animal's red-rimmed eyes peering at the floor of the stable.

"She is beautiful, although quiet," Alice observed.

"Quiet?" Edward asked. "Isabella? I wouldn't have labeled her thus."

"No, your precious horse, good sir. I hadn't even noticed her until this moment."

"Neither is Rosalie quiet. Not usually."

Edward came from the other side of his father's horse and quickly let himself into Rosalie's stall. All the while, the horse hardly moved in response. Edward petted and prodded the mare, who followed his movements lazily with her eyes.

"Isabella says she is much mended," Alice remarked, as if it could ward off the horse's lassitude.

"She is clearly not herself."

"Is she warm to the touch?" Alice asked. "My father says you can tell a horse's health by her gums."

Edward went for the horse's muzzle, but Rosalie shook her head and grunted. The boy glanced at Alice beseechingly and held tight to the horse's mane, as if he sought strength from their bond. Alice could see he did indeed care profoundly for his mare.

"We shall ask Isabella about this, sir. Your mare looks fatigued, that is all. Perhaps the nightingale kept her awake through the darkness with her song."

Edward shuffled and glanced at his feet. "I may be overreacting. Two days ago she could hardly stand. The swelling on her hind leg has healed nicely, and she doesn't smart when I press." Edward squeezed the horse's hind leg once more, testing its soundness. The horse didn't stir.

"Let us leave her in peace so that she might rest. When the little ones at home are recovering from illness, they often sleep as they mend. Let us finish with your father's horse, and then we can set our sites on dear Rosalie and the other activities you have your heart set to learn."

xXxXx

"Tell me when to stop pouring," Edward asked.

Isabella had taken dried flowers from the linden tree, ground them with a mortar and pestle, and added them to warm water. She had Edward bring the infusion to Rosalie's stall.

"Okay," Alice replied, holding the jar steady.

"Should I stop?"

He'd wounded his finger cutting off carrot tops. Isabella ordered Alice to pour water over the nick while she brought strips of clean cloth into the kitchen to wrap the wound. She'd smiled up at him as she deftly tied the bandages. "Good as new, my lord."

"Not just yet," Isabella advised.

"Now?" the boy asked again.

"Stop!" Alice quietly commanded.

Their fingers had touched, and Edward couldn't have said whether it had been hot or cold in the small space of the kitchen, only that it seemed short of breathable air.

"What?" Edward asked, continuing to pour the brining liquid into the large earthenware jar.

"Stop! Edward, stop pouring!" Isabella urged.

And then she'd dropped his hands. Tendrils of wavy hair framed her face before she looked away.

"Now?" he asked.

"Goodness!"

"Oh, no!" Alice shouted as brine cascaded over the lip of the jar.

"I've stopped."

"Well, you were a bit too late," Isabella opined with an exasperated laugh, looking for a rag to mop up the salty water.

Edward sighed in frustration. "Perhaps if I could have seen through the jar," he offered by way of excuse.

Alice pushed past the lad with rags she'd found while cleaning the kitchen of the morning's man-made breakfast mess. "Invisible jars? You're beginning to sound like Isabella. Will they fly?"

Isabella chuckled as she mopped. Edward smiled as he took a cloth from Alice to wipe clean the stone floor. "They may exist without the need of Isabella's imaginings. My brother returned from his last journey with translucent tableware from lands south of the Distant Sea."

"Jasper?" Alice asked excitedly.

"You know of my brother?"

"Every maiden in Bryn Athyn has heard tell of Jasper Cullen, while every young man desires to grow up and follow in the footsteps of one or the other of your brothers."

Isabella watched Edward concentrate on the floor with renewed vigor, making certain not one errant drop of brine had escaped his attention. "I have no wish to be either," she offered, wringing her sodden cloth over the cleaning bucket.

"And you are not a young man, Isabella, despite how you hide your curves," Alice countered.

Isabella suddenly found cause to refocus her attention on mopping the countertop. "I still might desire adventure. I can see no connection between my gender and my dreams."

"You're the only girl who doesn't, then."

"My own mother studied the stars, Alice. Don't lecture me on the limits of my sex."

"Staring at the skies is not my idea of an adventure. Anyway, that's simply what she did until she met your father and moved here."

Isabella squared off against Alice, her hands on her hips. "My father didn't prohibit my mother from her studies."

Alice smirked and waggled her eyebrows. "Perhaps not, but I'm certain she found other things to study, once wed."

"Alice!" Isabella cast an eye in Edward's direction. The kitchen floor had never been so clean.

"Oh please, just because our young lord is to be a friar, it doesn't mean he is ignorant of the attraction between man and woman."

Edward stood, wiping his hands on his pants, looking everywhere about the small room except at the two young women before him. "So, um, what do we do with these jars now?"

"We let the contents sit and stew. It turns out that when you take two different things, like brine and vegetables, and place them together in tight quarters, they interact one with the other. Right, Isabella?"

"I should go get the fruit from the cellar," Isabella decided. "We've still the sauces and preserves to prepare."

"Please, allow me," Edward asked. Isabella wasn't certain he even knew the location of the cellar, but she did not try to stop the nobleman as he nearly ran from the room.

Alice watched the boy as he left, then sighed and shook her head as he disappeared through the door to the kitchen garden. "And to think you compared him to maple trees and clover!"

"What manner of evil has possessed you, friend?"

"He is hardly a vegetable. He's long and lean, like a young stag maybe, but certainly not vegetation."

It was difficult for Isabella to direct her ire at Alice, though, when it felt as if her insides were at war with themselves. All morning long it had felt as if Lord Cullen's enormous horse were sitting on her chest, while her senses were on high alert, jumping and starting at the smallest sounds. Her skin felt as if it were on fire, probably due to the coals burning in the pit of her stomach.

"He is very… intent," Alice continued, boosting herself up so she sat on the edge of the counter. "His father is also a close observer, but not like the young lord. Master Cullen seems genuinely curious. He could look at me all day long without making my skin crawl." Alice paused and glanced at Isabella expectantly and cleared her throat. Isabella jumped as if she'd been struck by lightning, and glanced up at her friend.

"Yes, yes, they are both intense, to use your phrasing, but they are very different indeed."

"Indeed!" Alice quietly enthused. "For instance, the young lord just walks around all the livelong day calling you by your given name. Isabella this, and Isabella that."

"It is my name, Alice," Isabella replied as she aligned the jars along the back of the counter against the wall.

"Ha! Why yes, it is. Now, Isabella, stop fumbling with those jars and look at me."

For the first time in all of her days on this earth, Isabella felt bashful as she looked her closest friend in the eyes. Alice's smile was irrepressible. "You fancy him."

Isabella went back to work on the jars. "I do not!"

"You've no need to protest. It is a relief to find you are a normal girl after all."

"He is bound for the priesthood," Isabella hissed.

"He is not a priest just yet."

"And no matter, for he lives in the capital. He is a nobleman."

"He is a boy and you are a girl."

"I've known boys my whole life. We just talk, Alice. He is a good man. You should hear him speak of his god. He might make a convert of me yet."

"He fancies you."

"Please, Alice. He is a gentleman."

It was more than that, though, and Isabella knew it. Up until the kitchen accident this morning, the boy had not even touched her, yet he'd stayed awake with her all night long talking of everything from distant, imaginary universes to her favorite flowers. He spoke about his love for his god and for his horse, but when she shook her hair, the humors rose in his cheeks and his breathing came faster. She knew this. Did it mean he fancied her? For the idea of a boy fancying a girl seemed so petty and distasteful, yet the burning embers that flared within her whenever they were alone together, the way she felt like she'd run a race and wanted to spill her soul - those feelings seemed so much more significant than the word "fancy". She did not fancy Edward Cullen. She could not. Could she?

Then when she'd bandaged Edward's small wound, her fingers tangled with his, and she fought to be deft with the bandage, yet she fumbled. She'd buzzed like the strings on a lute when struck.

"I'd been quite certain you would join the cloister were it not for your heathen tendencies," Alice babbled on.

"The cloister? Like my mother?" Isabella asked, always attuned to tales of Renee Swan.

Alice took a break from her chatter and sighed. "Yes, your mother. Would you tell me the story again?" she asked. "It's so romantic."

Isabella knew which story Alice was referring to. It was her friend's favorite. Despite the language Isabella used to tell the tale, Alice colored it with her own imagery and turned it into something fantastically glamorous. "I've told you so many times, Alice. You know it as well as I."

Alice cleared her throat and made herself as comfortable as possible on the countertop. "Fine, I shall test my skill as a bard then. Your mother, Renee, studied at the cloister -"

"For it is the only place for a woman to learn," Isabella cut in.

"You just said I could tell this tale! Let me speak more than a sentence before correcting me."

Isabella chuckled. Alice usually interrupted stories. "Please, go ahead. Tell me of my parents."

"Thank you, Isabella. Well, she lived at Bryn Mawr and she fell ill. It seemed hopeless." Alice gazed out the window into the yard, as if the story were unfolding before her. "Everyone thought she would die. All of the best healers had already visited her and said their efforts were in vain. So they had the herbalist's apprentice watch over her, for there was nothing left to do. But the young apprentice healed her, and they fell in love, and he stole her away from a lonely life of solitary study."

"He stole no one. She left of her own will!" Isabella protested.

"Because she loved him and he, her. Miraculously restored to health, she ran off with him into the sunset."

"She had consumption and could never completely heal. My father kept her alive a little more than a year."

"She lived long enough to know love, long enough to become a mother and make a family. Your father saved her in more ways than one."

Isabella smiled, but her eyes were full of sadness. She rested against the counter's edge, finding support next to her friend. "I wish I knew her, Alice. I wish she were here with me."

"I've had two mothers, Isabella. They are a mixed blessing."

The girls chuckled together, but Isabella's wish was sincere. She wished fervently for someone she could confide her feelings to - someone more feminine than her father, someone more level-headed than Alice, someone less unsettling than Edward Cullen. She wished for an alternate universe where Renee Swan had never perished and could bestow wisdom upon her daughter, all the while helping steady her nerves and sort through her feelings.

Meanwhile, the young lord lingered just outside the kitchen door holding heavy crates of fruit in the chilly drizzling rain, contemplating one story about Renee Swan that hadn't been discussed in his seminary lessons.

xXxXx

Hours later, countless pounds of apples and pears had been sliced and packed tightly with honey, while pot after pot of fruit had been cooked down to sauce and securely stored, until all three of the kitchen laborers were wilted, wet, stained and sticky. Velvet tunics were shed and linen and silk stuck to skin. Cheeks were flushed, hair hung heavy, and sleeves were rolled to the elbows. The young laborers were uniformly spent, hours of drudgery hanging on their bones like anchors, dragging them toward the floor.

The wind grew, gale by gale, sending leaves and twigs scuttling past the kitchen window. Rain pattered against the thatched roof, like the muffled sound of horse's hooves at a distance. The sun cast a yellow-gray glow from behind gathering clouds, as it sank towards the Western horizon.

Edward concentrated on carting the packed jars to the cellar, where they would keep through the coming cold. Alice took charge of the kitchen cleaning, while Isabella set to preparing a modest evening meal.

"Do you expect your father?" Alice asked her friend, wiping stray hair from her eyes.

"He will either appear or send word when he can. It certainly won't be the first time I spend the night in waiting."

"But you have company. You will be fine here with the noblemen?"

"Simply one less mouth to feed if father does not arrive. I shall survive it, Alice." Isabella took special care to arrange tender new potatoes and carrots around lamb chops, decorating plates as if they were a minor work of art.

"And if I should leave before Lord Cullen arrives? Shall you survive that situation as well?" she asked.

"I shall," Isabella replied, although the certainty had gone out of her voice.

Two nights with the young nobleman had been novel, but daylight and the company of a friend had stirred feelings within her she could scarcely admit existed. When he came close she burned so hot it felt as if she'd fallen into the kitchen fire, and the longer he lingered the worse the pain. It was the most uncomfortable feeling in the world, but at the same time she wanted to bask in the blaze.

"I shall be fine," she repeated, trying to make it true.

"Well, it is good to hear, for I must be off in a moment. I hope your father excuses my absence tonight, for I am acting as an incomplete chaperone. I must say, though, there is clearly no danger here. Between your denial and the boy's vows it would take all manner of calamity before something sprung betwixt the two of you."

"I would be grateful if calamity avoided this household, thank you, Alice."

"Then there is no harm if I go, is there?"

"Ahem."

The girls looked up to find Edward standing at the kitchen threshold with a freshly washed face and damp hair hanging over his forehead. He'd traded his soiled tunic for a vest of emerald green velvet, and his undershirt was partially unlaced and wet at the edges from his hasty bath.

Isabella swallowed. "I dare say we'll be fine until our parents return."

Alice picked up the basket of preserves she'd packed for her family. "And you will tell me everything this time around, Bella," she hissed. Alice spun around and curtsied to the young lord. "It was a pleasure to meet you, sir. I hope you enjoy the rest of your stay in our hamlet."

"I hope we meet again, Miss Brandon," Edward offered with a small bow.

"Yes, my lord. Me too," she replied with a giggle.

Isabella saw her friend to the door and granted her a parting hug, one that did not leave her a quivering mound of mush. Edward hung at the threshold, as if he were suddenly waiting for permission to enter. He wasn't, though. He watched how the afterglow of the setting sun framed Isabella, bringing out golden highlights in her disheveled, upswept hair. Isabella, for her part, took a breath before turning back to face the lad.

"You've had the run of my kitchen today; please feel free to enter, sir."

Nevertheless, Edward continued to linger, watching from a distance. "I could smell your cooking from my chamber. Famished, I thought I might faint before I walked the ten paces to the kitchen."

"I don't know if I could lift you from the floor, so please have a seat before you collapse."

"It doesn't feel appropriate that you should wait on me. What can I do to help?" he asked, taking a tentative step in her direction.

Isabella wiped her hands on her smock. "It is all done. There's nothing left but to light the candles."

"Allow me," Edward replied. He found the candlesticks on the table and lit them over the kitchen hearth. Golden lights flickered, casting shadows in the darkening room.

"Should we wait for your father?" Isabella asked.

"I don't imagine so." The boy's voice became suddenly clipped and his eyes darkened, but he shook his head as if shaking off an untoward thought. "Let us forget my father this evening, for I am certain he is not thinking of us."

Edward pulled out a chair, inviting Isabella to sit. She slid two plates onto the table before taking a seat.

"As you wish, my lord."

"Thank you for this meal," the boy offered, taking his place across the table from her.

"It is I who should thank you. We accomplished much today." Isabella's eyes glinted in the candlelight. She blushed and looked about the room instead of at the boy across from her. "Well, that is, after a slow start," she added. She giggled with a nod to the boy, and went for her fork.

"You don't pray before eating in your household," Edward noted.

"No, we never have."

"Could we pray tonight?" he asked beseechingly.

Isabella's fork was poised in midair, but feeling censured, she returned it to the tabletop. "Oh. Certainly. If you would like."

"Thank you," he said before closing his eyes and bowing his head. The girl followed suit and fidgeted.

"Heavenly Father, I would like to thank you for this day, this meal, this home and its inhabitants. For here, Rosalie has found good care. Here is where I went from watching the world to participating in something vital and essential. Heavenly Father, I would likely have continued along this path of observation if it weren't for the young woman I met here in Bryn Athyn, who has pushed me to assert my will, and has likewise reaffirmed the faith and commitment I have in you. For her mind is heavenly, yet unintendedly so. She is but another bit of evidence you are alive in all things. For all of this, I give you thanks. Amen."

"Amen," Isabella murmured, staring at her plate, her hands in her lap. She felt almost guilty, and completely undeserving of the young man's praise, for she did not believe in the young man's god, yet he valued her in his god's light.

"And now is the time when we would traditionally eat," Edward added with a laugh.

Isabella raised her eyes. "Do you think I am awful because I do not honor your god?" she asked.

"I don't believe you listened to my prayer. You are the embodiment of my God," he replied. "You are his beauty made manifest. How could you be awful?"

"I am certainly not the second coming, sir."

Edward pressed his lips together and shook his head. "His glory shines from within you, even though you know it not. You have a mind that might unite science and heaven."

She shook her head right back at him. "No. I make up stories. I imagine. It is different."

"If there were anyone who could make mathematics of the heavens, or find some equation that might track the energy flowing between people, the energy I feel sitting here in this heavenly company, I believe it would be you."

Isabella found the strength to look the boy in the face. He was leaning over the table, his bright green eyes glittering in the candlelight. He'd just equated her with heaven and complimented her mind, and admitted he felt something when they were together. Did he ache deep within his core, or could he simply be stirred by his god? She couldn't tell by the way his eyes gleamed or by the way he smiled at her from across the table.

She shivered and took a deep breath. "I also feel… something, my lord. I thought I might be mad."

Edward's smile broadened and Isabella's heart fluttered in her chest. "I am quite certain you are unquestionably mad. We covered this topic early on in our friendship."

Isabella and Edward laughed, and some of the pressure released, like the first bubble of air from a simmering pot. It was enough of a relief that Isabella could finally pick up her fork again, and enough that she noticed her appetite after a long day's labor. Enough that the two could finally dig into their meal unselfconsciously, relieving their hunger and relaxing into one another's company.

xXxXx

"... and when the bubble of cranberry sauce jumped from the pot -"

"And splashed up my nose." Edward laughed. "I may never smell anything but cranberry from here forward."

"Did it burn?" Isabella asked.

"You tell me," the boy replied, flaring his nostrils and tilting his head back.

"I cannot see." Isabella laughed and stood, leaning full over the table to peer into the boy's nose. But instead, she found herself leaning over a boy, sharing his breath, and her own breath caught in her throat and she fell back into her chair.

"Well?" he asked, looking back in her direction.

"I cannot tell," she murmured.

"I shall manage, either way. My nose, this wound on my hand, I should hope they scar for they shall remind me how lucky I was to stumble across your path."

"Yes, your life's work complete, because now you know how to pickle."

"And preserve," he added.

"And how to make porridge - poorly, I might add."

"And I know more of Renee Swan's story."

Isabella snapped to attention. "You heard Alice?"

"I couldn't help it. Miss Brandon has a way with words. I'm sorry your mother was taken from you so young, Isabella."

For the hundredth time that day, Isabella felt as if she couldn't catch her breath. The boy gazed at her tenderly, expectantly. "I miss her dearly. Is it another sign of madness to miss someone you cannot remember?"

"No, it's simply an indication of the size of your heart."

Isabella tried to smile at the boy. Her chest heaved against her bodice, her skin tingled, and all the while she felt as if she might burn from the inside out. She found herself blinking away tears. She had the strange impulse to run to her room and sob, but just the thought made her miss the man's presence.

"Can I clear your plate?" he asked.

"No, sir, let me," she countered.

"Edward."

"Edward," she replied, looking him square in the face, tears still stinging her eyes.

The boy leaned toward her across the table again. He stretched his fingers where they rested on the tabletop as if searching for something to grip. "You taught me how one might imagine something and bring it to life."

Isabella half smiled. "Like other worlds?"

"You made me imagine more than meeting you in secret. And now we've had this day, and this dinner together tonight. What we made was perfect. Thank you."

* * *

 **A/N: That scar was for Sue & Nic. ;-) Thanks to everyone that's read and reviewed - and for the shout out on A Different Forest. Catch the next chapter next Friday. ~M**


	6. Chapter 6

**Twilight is not owned by me, but the pickling references are all mine!**

 **Thanks to my fearless beta, Suebee0619 for barely MANAGING to keep my grammar in check, and to Robsmyyummy Cabanaboy and Nicffwhisperer for your insight.**

 **Can you believe Alice left them alone? What next?...**

* * *

 **Chapter 6**

Their day had indeed been perfect. Isabella smiled easily as she worked with Edward to clear dinner, scour dishes and set the kitchen in order for the evening. Raindrops splattered against the kitchen window and wind rushed through the eaves. Isabella kept the hearth fire burning and warmed water for tea.

Edward worked with her in the kitchen as if he set about to tease her senses. He'd move closer as he wiped down the table, then retreat as he went for the broom stored in the corner. She snuck glances, trying to judge in shadows and movements whether the boy was moved the same as she. On one hand she thought it the most ridiculous idea in the world that any other human might feel so strongly inside… about _her_. On the other hand, it seemed impossible she alone could feel something so all-consuming without the other individual noticing it as well. He'd spoken of the energy between the two of them as he spoke about God and heaven. And while she'd never given much serious thought to heaven, she'd likewise never felt such serious stirrings within her own body.

"You've seen the magistrate?" Edward asked as they made light conversation while cleaning.

"Who could miss him?" Isabella replied with a chuckle as she went about preparing evening tea.

Edward smiled. "Yes, so he asked us if he'd make it through Center City's gates if he left Bryn Athyn at daybreak. Then father replies, 'They built it to accommodate carriages, so you should just about pass.'"

Isabella laughed despite herself. "That is wicked!"

"That is father's humor."

"I don't believe my own father has ever told a joke in his life, at least not in mine."

Edward shook his head. "I've heard one too many of my father's jokes on this trip."

"Tell me!" she cheered.

Edward's face colored. "They are not jokes fit for a seminarian, and certainly not for a maiden."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, her hand covering her mouth.

"Oh, yes," he added darkly, returning his attention to the floor he'd been sweeping.

Isabella's mind reeled. What were these jokes that Edward could no longer look her in the eye? As she added spoonfuls of dried chicory to the teapot, she tried in vain to piece together what might be both improper and humorous, but found her mind, for once, incapable of such feats of imagination.

"I was wondering…" the boy began as she poured water into the teapot.

"Yes?" she asked, hanging on his every word, the kettle hanging from her fist.

"I was wondering if we need meet in the barn this evening."

With his words, she no longer hung, but came crashing to the ground. That had not been what she had been wondering at all. "Oh," she replied, deflated.

"I thought perhaps we could wait indoors for our parents. We could speak within the comfort of thick stone walls, relaxing on benches instead of straw. In warmth."

Isabella cast her eyes outside and shivered. "I suppose it best we not linger in the cold and wet." The boy's reasoning was sound; nevertheless, one of their fathers might appear at any moment, putting a premature end to their evening.

For Edward's part, even though the Swan's home was sparsely furnished and drafty, he had never felt quite as warm and comfortable as he'd felt this evening. At least he'd not felt this kind of warmth since his mother had passed ten years earlier, and even then, it had been a different feeling of comfort. He'd sought this warmth in the kitchen with cook. She called it playing house and would set him up with dough while she baked or a small bristle broom while she'd scrubbed. He'd pined for warmth like this after his mother had passed, when he climbed into her forgotten wardrobe and slept amongst her musty robes. Now he'd found similar warmth in a tiny woodland town he'd never heard tell of before, whilst his closest companion had taken ill.

"We must still visit the barn to put the animals up for the night," Edward added, suddenly aware that he hadn't thought of Rosalie in hours.

"What do you say we make a run for it while the tea steeps?" Isabella suggested. "The rain's but a mist at the moment, although a swift gale might pick us up and blow us into the barn, leaving it to the elements instead of our feet."

"Another race?" Edward asked, a smile lighting his face.

"But this time the head start shall be mine!" Isabella called with a laugh, making a hasty dash and throwing open the kitchen door to the cold and wind. She took off as fast as her feet could carry her, as frigid gusts from the north made her skirts billow around her and pulled her hair from its pins. She heard Edward behind her dutifully close the door and took all the advantage that afforded, lengthening her stride. Her breath came in clouds, blown to the sky in bursts of wind. Goosebumps trembled to life on her arms and her loose hair stuck to her face as freezing mist clung to her bare skin. She bounded downhill toward the barn, nearly tripping over loose stones in the twilight darkness and laughing into the night at the exhilaration of it all. She was elated when she ran headlong through the barn door, the clear winner.

"I made it!" she cheered, gasping for air.

Edward dashed into the barn beside her then bent double, panting. "You'd... a head... start," he huffed.

"You had the advantage when you won the other night," she quipped.

"But you've no need. I've no doubt you could rival Emmett."

"Your brother? The knight? He is a fan of foot races?" she asked, peering at the boy in the darkness as he straightened and stretched.

"My eldest brother is a fan of any competition. After my lesson today, I might try to out-pickle him once I return home."

"You might want a bit more practice then." Isabella laughed.

Edward smiled down at the maiden. "Then I shall let you compete as my proxy."

"Yes, let us! I would like to meet your brother," Isabella gushed.

Edward sunk his hands into his pockets and rocked on his heels. "Of course you would."

"Why do you say it like that?"

"Like what?" he replied.

"Of course you would," Isabella intoned in an imitation of the boy's exasperated acceptance. She heard Edward sigh and tried searching his face but found it difficult to find what she was looking for in the darkness of the barn.

"I would like to meet Sir Emmett Cullen because he is your brother, Edward. For no other reason. And if I had a sibling I should like you to meet them. It is what friends do."

"We are friends?" he asked, gazing down at her anew.

Isabella swallowed her words and her heart came to palpable life in her chest. She had been wondering the same all day long.

"Friends?" he asked once more, coming closer, still watching intently. She could feel the growing warmth of his presence even in the frigid night air. Her skin tingled as fire licked at her body from the inside out.

"I have friends," she managed to murmur, fighting for breath. "But you are -"

A high-pitched whinny came from within the barn, cutting like ice through the charge, cutting off Isabella's speech. The youngsters waited and the sound came again.

"Was that?" she asked.

"Rosalie," Edward replied and sprinted for the stalls.

Isabella ran for the lamp they'd stowed the evening prior, fumbling then struggling at striking the flint.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no!" came Edward's desperate cry.

"What is it?" she called, still battling to light the wick, unwilling to run back to the house.

"She's down. Bella, it is dire."

Tossing the lantern aside, Isabella ran to Rosalie's stall and found the animal splayed out on the ground, and Edward on his knees at her side.

"She's covered in sweat and hot to the touch."

Isabella knelt next to the boy and took to surveying the animal the best she could in the thick darkness of the barn. The beast huffed while Isabella examined her head. She was wet as if she'd been out in the rain, and hot like she'd run for days, but her lips and gums were dry. The animal's middle rose and fell as if she were fighting for air.

"What could it be?" Edward asked. "She was better. She _was_ better, wasn't she? Everyone said she was mending."

Isabella ran her hands over the animal, from Rosalie's head down her neck, looking for the little knots her father would point out on his patients when they would fall ill to the fever. She tenderly pressed against her ribs, then lower, under her belly. "The humors my father let seem to have returned. They've traveled deeply inward."

"Can we let them again?" Edward asked, taking up the horse's head in his lap. Rosalie huffed.

"I don't know."

"When will you know?" he pled.

"Edward, please," she hushed, running her hands down the animal's forelegs one at a time. They were warm and wet, but intact. "Why don't you get a blanket to begin wiping her down?" she suggested, moving to the horse's backside.

Edward eased Rosalie's head from his lap and ran to the rear of the barn. Rosalie's hind leg nearest the floor seemed sound, if not very warm, but when it came to the leg closer to her, Isabella detected a problem immediately. The wound her father had made to drain the dark humors had reopened, and she felt with her fingertips where thick clotting fluid ran over the horse's hock. Rosalie huffed again and Isabella murmured words of calm as her fingers deftly continued their course. Then she felt something just above the fetlock that would have sealed any other horse's fate. Rosalie's body shook as Isabella tenderly prodded the rest of the pastern and hoof, looking for any other signs of injury.

Edward rushed back to the stall, blanket in hand, his eyes bright with tears. "Have you found what afflicts her?" he asked.

"We must try to draw the dark humors from the wound for they have burst through the scar at the same time they seem to have taken hold of her."

"Can you do that?" he asked, kneeling next to her.

"I can try," she murmured, petting the horse's side.

Edward began tenderly wiping down Rosalie's face and neck. Isabella took a deep breath and faced the boy. Her body shivered and ached at his proximity. She bit her lip and shook her head so she might think more clearly. She needed her wits about her.

"There is more," Isabella added quietly. Edward searched her face, his eyes sparkling with unshed tears. The maiden fought back tears of her own. She had dreadful news to share. "I believe she may have collapsed. The afflicted leg is broken," she whispered.

"No."

"I'm so sorry," she breathed.

"How can we fix it?"

"Edward, she is a horse."

"I did not ask what kind of animal she is. How do we fix her leg, Isabella?" he demanded, tears streaming down his face. "She may be a horse, but she still deserves for us to try."

The maiden wiped at her eyes and peered at the animal sprawled out before her. Rosalie lay quietly, her breath coming quickly, her body shuddering. "Were she a woman we would stabilize it with a splint."

"Then it is what we will do for her."

"But, Edward, I ca -"

"Please, Bella. There is no one but you. She needs you. _I_ need you."

Isabella gazed at the boy, so desperate and frightened, so close she merely had to bow her head to rest against his chest. "We will require some long, straight sticks," she rasped. "I shall get the herbs for her wound."

Edward nodded and scrambled to his feet and Isabella peered down at the mare once more. "I hope this is what you would desire, sweet girl," she murmured and rubbed the animal behind her ear. "I shall do my best."

xXxXx

The rain returned with renewed vigor, sweeping through the skies and whipping with the wind through the trees, smarting where it struck the girl as she ran back to the house for a flame. A lantern hastily lit and a mortar and pestle secured, she dashed back outside in search of plantain and aromatic herbs for a poultice.

Mint and oregano were simple enough to locate in the kitchen garden, but plantain grew wild and Isabella dashed into the orchard out by the clutch of chestnut trees, the last place she'd spotted the weed. Down on her hands and knees in the cold and wet, she crawled about, searching for the last of the long green shoots, so scarce this time of year. She found a handful of the long leaves and relief washed over her in a wave, until she recalled the size of the steed and her wound.

Isabella sighed and tears joined the rainwater on her face. Her hair hung in her eyes, her soaked clothing clung to her skin, and dirt and pebbles had been ground into her knees. The lamplight flickered in the wind. She felt desperate, the situation hopeless.

Casting her eyes about, she spotted Edward hurrying in her direction. She didn't want to disappoint the boy, but there simply wasn't enough autumn plantain to make the poultice Rosalie required. The boy took to his knees beside her on the ground.

"I can't find enough, Edward. It is wet and dark and everything is beginning to look the same."

"I have faith in you," he assured her.

She looked up at the boy through tendrils of wet, bedraggled hair. "But it's not just my shortfall. There is not enough herb."

"Let love guide you and then show me how I can help."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"You are the one who explained that to me."

Love. Soaked and cold, on the ground in the darkness and the wind, she remembered finding the boy two nights ago with Rosalie's head in his lap as he tenderly brushed her mane. She recounted how he accepted her ideas about universal measure without question, how he didn't joke about her strange fancies, but valued them. She thought about how he equated her with his god, and how the warmth radiating from his body managed to burn deep inside of her. She thought about how they might never have come together save for the chestnut mare, now deathly ill in her family's barn.

"Heavenly Father, we ask for your assistance this evening," Edward whispered.

She thought of afternoons spent with her father gathering weeds for medicine.

"We are powerless without you. Let us use the tools you've given us to save our friend."

She thought about her father as he explained how plantain had been considered one of the nine sacred herbs by those who believed in the gods, since it would draw humors and poisons from a wound. In the cloister it was called the mother of all medicines. That is what her mother would have called it.

" _Go to her when you don't know what to do, my daughter," Master Swan had instructed as they trooped through the thicket by the fence._

"We trust you'll help us find a way…"

" _You'll find her wherever man trods, and you'll remember this because her leaves look like the sole of a foot. The friars use her to save the souls of man."_

"Edward, let's go!" Isabella called, jumping to her feet. She ran with the boy down the hill and through the fields to the low wall lining her family's property. She scrambled over the stone, tearing stockings and scraping knees, and ducked into the ditch alongside the dirt road where those traveling on foot would tread to avoid horses and carts. There, shielded from the autumn elements, she spotted a neat row of plantain lining the footpath.

"This is it!" she cheered, pulling a weed from the sodden soil and holding it up so the boy could see. "Get as much of this as you can find."

Isabella used her skirts as a sack, and Edward pulled off his vest and threaded his hand through the armholes, forming an improvised basket. When they'd gathered all they could, they climbed back over the wall and ran for the barn.

"We'll need hot water and another pot for mixing," the girl instructed.

Little by little, she added the weeds to the mortar with the herbs from the garden, and with much effort, ground the leaves into a sticky powder. Edward trudged into the barn with the large pot from the kitchen hearth and a kettle full of water.

"What now?" he asked.

Isabella scooped the herbs from the mortar, and instructed Edward to slowly add water. Working closely together, they composed a warm, thick paste.

"You found sticks?" she asked. The boy nodded toward the wall where several pieces of long, straight wood were lined.

"We'll need clean rags," she instructed.

The boy cast his eyes about the space, then pulled his undershirt over his head and held it out to her. "Will this do?" he asked.

Isabella closed her eyes and attempted to dispel the feelings that lept into her chest at the sight of the boy's torso in the lamplight. She tried shaking her head, but the ache remained. "No, we need strips of cloth," she managed to whisper.

"Then I shall turn it into strips," he replied. She heard the small sound of fabric tearing.

Taking a deep breath, Isabella purposefully avoided the sight of the boy as she carried the poultice to Rosalie's stall. Edward came with the sticks and the cloth, and she quickly sorted through the stack to find the two which would best fit the horse's hind leg.

"This will only work if she stays still, and horses are not known for stillness," she cautioned.

"I shall stay with her. I'll keep her still. She'll listen to me," Edward insisted.

Isabella wasn't convinced, but she went to work anyway. The two labored together over the horse. Isabella held the improvised splints and Edward secured silken strips. He tied them tightly, one after the next, after the next, until he had fastened everything in place around the shattered leg. Then Isabella moved higher, deftly massaging the medicinal paste into the wound, and Edward bound it with more silken strips from his undershirt.

Their heads were bent together over the horse's hindquarters. Their fingertips brushed and their breath commingled in the cold, damp air. Isabella ducked, trying to find the edge of a silken tie, and her wet hair swung and unexpectedly fell with a slap against Edward's bare chest. The girl froze, shocked by the contact. She watched in the lamplight as a tiny rivulet of water trickled from where her hair met his ribs, sliding down the boy's abdomen to dampen the hem of his breeches. They both startled and glanced at one another, just inches apart with cheeks pink from the chill and eyes bright with exhilaration.

Gently, Edward clasped the errant lock of Isabella's hair into his hand and swept it over her shoulder, tucking it behind her ear as he gazed into her eyes. He held his hand there and held his breath, making no move to put more space between them.

"I think that will do for now," Isabella murmured, glancing at the mare's leg before looking back at the boy.

"I believe it will," he whispered. His chest shook as he took a deep breath.

"Do you?" she asked as his fingers trailed lightly down her neck.

"Bella," he rasped.

"What?"

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a quick movement made with the boy's free hand, and her eyes swept downward over his torso to catch the end of an action; an adjustment made and a prominence.

"Oh!" she breathed, and the boy jumped from his knees and spun around, breaking the spell.

Isabella's breath came heavy, as if she'd been running instead of kneeling over a horse. "It's true then," she murmured.

The boy kept his back to her, leaning against the side of the stall.

'Edward?" she asked.

"Maiden," Edward rasped, in a voice uncharacteristically low and gravely. He remained with his forehead against the wall, his back rising and falling as if he too had run for make-believe miles.

"Isabella," she insisted, slowly rising to her feet.

"Isabella?" he asked, almost a whisper.

"For days I have been carrying this feeling within myself. It grows and grows, leaving me alternatingly sleepless and sleepy, and fretful and forgetful. And now... I believe you know how I feel."

Edward shook his head. "You are a woman."

"And because you cannot see my feelings as I can see yours, it means I cannot have them?"

Edward slipped through the stall, putting its door between them and keeping his eyes on the ground. "This conversation is improper."

"What about either of us is proper, sir? And will you never look at me again?" she plead.

"I do not wish to degrade you. Not like that. I am not like _him_."

Bella made a move to the door of the stall, and Edward retreated further to the barn door.

"You explained to me that love moves us, and love is the embodiment of your God," she reminded the boy. "How could you degrade me, sir?"

Edward remained frustratingly silent as he stared at the dark clouds rushing over the stars. Wind sent leaves dancing through the night sky and scuttling across the ground. Isabella waited, her heart pounding in her chest, until it was clear the boy had no intention of answering. He might share in her frustration, but he certainly did not relish the sensation. Her chest ached, the burn turning sour.

"Then how can I relinquish this feeling which has possessed me, body and mind?"

"Do you wish the feeling to leave?" he asked quietly, still not turning back to her.

"I cannot very well walk through life like this forever."

"Perhaps it will resolve after I depart," he offered, kicking at the ground.

"I am supposed to wait on your withdrawal?" she huffed.

"Ignore it and it will subside."

"I've found that impossible. Is that something _you_ are capable of?"

Edward shook his head, but did not look back at her. "You know all the answers, Isabella. Use your imagination and make it so."

"But-"

"I should get water for Rosalie. For myself."

"But-"

"You have done all that could have been asked of you tonight. Thank you for your thorough service. I am grateful for your effort and your aid, and I will not forget it. Good night, Isabella."

xXxXx

Later that evening, Isabella tossed and turned as she attempted to settle down for sleep. Her father hadn't yet returned, which meant Angela Fallowell's condition had been as grave as Ben had feared. Lord Cullen was still absent, something Edward had alluded to with open disdain. And Rosalie needed tending, but Isabella felt far too afraid to return to the barn.

The barn. Isabella tried over and over again to make sense of what had happened in the barn.

Lying in bed, her body tingled from head to toe as she recalled the fire in the boy's eyes, the rise and fall of his bare chest so close to hers, and the wet, gray velvet straining over his groin. She wished his fingertips had lingered against her skin when he, ever so gently, pushed her hair behind her ear. She recalled the trail of the rainwater as it slid down his torso, dampening the top of his britches, where she would have liked to touch the fabric.

She didn't ache for intercourse, of that she could be certain. It was not something to be put into practice, but theoretical knowledge understood from her time on a farm and from veiled descriptions in her father's medical texts. She could not imagine such intimacy. In truth, she did not know what she ached for, just that she hurt and could think of nothing else. And now she knew the boy felt the same as she did. She'd seen proof.

Edward said to use her imagination. Is that what he did? Did he imagine her tossing and turning on her sleeping pallet, trying to put together puzzle pieces she could hardly see?

She took a deep breath and tried to focus her thoughts. She tried to imagine… a kiss. She imagined soft lips pressed hard against hers. His large hand might grip the back of her head, holding her close. She imagined ghosting her hands over his damp chest, then pressing her torso against his. She imagined how they would share the rainwater dampness between them, how he might feel against her. With those images, though, the ache in her bones grew worse, swelling to a crescendo between her legs.

Isabella tried to help her imagination with her hands. She slid them firmly over her ribs, one by one, lower and lower still, and pretended they were his. They slipped over the soft flesh of her abdomen. She knew where she would touch him if she dared. And in her imagination, why not dare? She stretched her fingers and the heat between her legs drew her hands still lower.

Again she imagined his lips against hers, their bodies flush. She lifted one hand to press against her breasts like his broad chest might, and bright lights burst beneath her eyelids. Her body shook. Her fingers pressed against a hardened nipple, while her other hand drifted through downy hairs. Softly and suddenly her fingertips felt as if they turned to flint as they scraped against a small stone, and the friction ignited white hot fire.

"Oh!"

She withdrew her hand, panting and on edge. Then, emboldened, Isabella pulled her nightgown around her hips, her hand returned, and she searched out the fiery little stone, a point so tender, so exquisite, that with the gentlest pressure she was born away through the skies and wrapped in warm down, all the while set to flame.

Her eyes closed, her mouth slack, her mind taken with dreams of a wet kiss with a shirtless lad, she pressed again, and again, and she held onto her breast. She pressed her thighs together against her hand, arched her back, and pressed again, and harder, and once more, and her lungs filled with air and she gasped as lightning struck behind her eyes and between her legs. It lasted seconds, and very slowly, like the receding shoreline, it mercifully subsided in waves. Isabella shuddered and opened her eyes. She had imagined it, and made it so, just like the boy had suggested.

* * *

 **A/N: Sigh. It's not easy being a medieval teenager. I'm interested to hear what people think about Edward's, ahem... reaction. Thanks so much for reading & for all of your reviews. Until next Friday, ~M**


	7. Chapter 7

**Twilight isn't mine, but m** **y team is amazing:**

 **SueBee0619, Nicffwhisperer & Robsmyyummy CabanaBoy have been my fanfic friends for ages. They're also awesome at what they fanfic do. Thanks & much love, ladies...**

 **When we left off, Bella was... imagining. Anyone think that's what Edward meant when he suggested it? ;-)**

* * *

 **Chapter 7**

Isabella woke before the cock's crow, having slept longer and sounder than she had in days. She was eager to find her father and inquire about Angela and the new babe, but her primary concerns lay in the barn. She needed to check on her charge and she needed to see Edward.

In fact, feeling more his equal than ever before, Isabella could hardly wait to see the boy again. As awkward as they had left matters between them, she'd lived lifetimes in the interval. She wasn't certain what she'd done as she lay on her sleeping pallet, but she knew what had been accomplished. In mere minutes she had made a days-long, deep ache erupt into a fire so bright that it burnt itself out almost immediately. After days of feeling troubled, she'd fallen into blissful calm she hadn't known since childhood.

Strangely though, just the thought of it all made the restless feeling return. She felt it spreading from below, from where she now knew the little stone lay. Given she had already discerned the answer to her problem, she couldn't keep from solving it once more. In the dim morning light, Isabella discarded her nightgown and stood before her small bedroom mirror, something she had specifically avoided since her body had begun to change. She angled herself so she could see as much of her flesh as possible. The small swells of her breasts were poised above the curve of a narrow waist and the small slope of an abdomen, which led her eyes to where dark brown hair curled, hiding the folds of her sex. Her hips were prominent, her thighs strong. Her fingers flexed, itching to touch, driven not only by desire, but by its resolution.

She rolled a nipple between her her thumb and forefinger and the same shuddering light from last night burst behind her eyelids when she blinked. Her groin ached, and she watched in the mirror as her hand traveled over her abdomen toward the dark hair at the apex of her thighs. With a slight flutter of her fingers and some delicate searching, she found the spot again, rubbed and pressed at the point, and watched her body react. Her chest rose and fell as her breath came faster and stronger. Goosebumps erupted on her arms, her legs went weak and she had to lean against the dressing table for support. Just like last night, she was quickly consumed by a burst of fire that left like an ebbing wave. Like Edward, she had explored new lands, but she'd managed to do it without leaving her home.

After a deep breath which seemed to fill her body down to her toes, her tension released and her mind cleared. Isabella hastened to dress and fasten her hair, and then rushed directly to the barn.

"Edward?" she called quietly as she pushed open the door. "Edward, are you awake? I must-"

Isabella stopped in her tracks, her voice silenced at the sight of Rosalie's open and empty stall. A lonely, bedraggled blanket lay on the trampled straw. Strawberry, Riley and Lord Cullen's gelding each stared at her mutely, if not somewhat impatiently, waiting for their oats and hay, giving away no clues to what had happened. She spotted the mess she and the boy had made last night; a soiled velvet vest littered with bits of weed, the ruined undershirt, the half empty pot of water, and a mortar and pestle covered with hard, dried plantain paste. She picked up what remained of the torn shirt and her body stirred remembering how the boy had swiftly pulled it over his head and given it up in offering, and then later how the rain from her hair had dripped onto his bare chest.

"Maiden, you are awake!"

Isabella spun around to see Lord Cullen quickly approaching, and she offered a hasty, confused curtsy.

The lord shook his head in obvious disapproval, eying the rags in her hands. "Yes, it's all that is left of the garment. It was tied all around that damned mare, like some child playing at being a healer. Would you please bring this up to him?" he asked, holding out a clean undershirt and new tunic. "Perhaps you could also find something for the boy to eat and drink? He is as stubborn as I am, but I am convinced that is where the comparison ends."

"Where are they, my lord?" Isabella asked.

"Your father has been overly graceful, and I imagine I'll have to offer recompense for his land. It will be ruined for food or fowl."

"Would you speak plainly, my lord?" she asked, flustered.

"My girl, I'm sorry. I am simply frustrated we have been waylaid so long, and now for nothing beside a night's passing fancy. My son drowns his sorrows in the farthest portion of your back pasture, still unwilling to leave the beast's side."

"Oh, no! Rosalie has passed? She is gone?"

"If only," Lord Cullen replied, shaking his head in exasperation. "Instead of letting them cart it away for rendering, he intends to bury the beast. He will be digging a week before he can safely inter that rotting sack."

Tears sprang to Isabella's eyes. "Dear heavens! Is he alone out there?" she asked, peering out the door of the barn toward the land they'd left fallow this growing year. She could see nothing beyond golden grasses and the gradual slope of a hill.

"Your father is hence, doing his best at preservation. We have the chill air in our favor, but little else. The boy will not listen to reason."

Isabella plucked the proffered garments from Lord Cullen's hands, offered a perfunctory curtsy, and dashed to the house. Glancing about the kitchen, she tossed apples and dried meat into a sack and ran to the well with large flasks to fill with water. No longer distracted by the world betwixt her thighs, the girl plainly spotted the heavy cartwheel tracks leading the way from the barn to the back pasture. She dashed up the the small hill and finally caught sight of Edward, still topless, bent with a shovel in hand. A cart rested next to him, filled with what looked like mounds of burlap and a large, misshapen lump. Her heavy heart fell into the pit of her stomach and the tears which had been welling trickled like two small streams down her face.

Isabella spotted her father making his way down the embankment. He waved a hand in greeting and hurried his steps, and she ran to meet him.

"Father, was it my fault?" The girl asked frantically, choking back a whimper. "I should have been there with them last night! I should have waited on your return!"

Charles held Isabella at arms' length. "I would have done the same as you, dear girl. You know my medicine well and have proven a very worthy apprentice."

Isabella sniffed and wiped at her eyes. "But still, there she lays, lifeless."

"All life must end, Daughter. The horse came to us afflicted. We gave her days more to spend with the boy. Count it a success - our extraordinary care was more than most would have afforded the beast. From what I have gathered, there is nothing that would have helped her in the state she was in, save a miracle."

Isabella could hold back her grief no more. She quietly sobbed and Charles took her full into his arms, and shushed as he patted the back of her head. The girl let him hold her like a babe, giving herself up to the childish sentiment of mourning the loss of an animal. She wept tears held for too long; tears of loneliness she'd bore with quiet perseverance, tears for her lost youth, and tears for a childhood relationship with her father she could never reclaim. She cried for the broken heart of the lonely boy on the hill, who loved more fiercely than anyone she knew, aside from her father. She cried for her failure, and she cried for the uncertainty of whatever would come next.

She heard shovel meet ground, over and over, steel striking soil, as Edward toiled over Rosalie's resting place. Every strike hurt her heart. Every strike a reminder of something lost that could not be recovered. Isabella only broke from her father's embrace when she heard the rhythmic cadence falter.

Charles glanced over Isabella's head to survey the tired worker on the hill. "I should be off to find him help. The boy means well, but the horse will turn to dust before he can dig a trench deep enough to safely bring her to ground."

Isabella held tight to her father's hands and would not let him leave. "How does Angela fare, father? And her babe? Did _they_ survive the night?"

"Thank the heavens, Angela's fever broke as twilight fell and the babe could finally suckle at her breast. She healed under new starlight, and I felt the peace of your mother's presence with such a blessing."

"Oh, that is good news!" Isabella exclaimed. Flooded with relief for Angela, Ben and their child, tears sprung anew to her eyes. Love had certainly moved Ben; her former friend's actions were a clear demonstration of the depths of his devotion.

"Yes, it is a relief," Charles agreed with a smile. "For it is difficult to raise a child to be as quick-witted and kind without a mother to help mold character."

Isabella shook her head. "I know the purpose of your flattery, dear father. No matter your words, I still failed my charge last night."

"Last night 'twas the horse who required a healer, but today there is another." Charles nodded up the hill to the boy.

Isabella followed her father's gaze. Back at work on the grave, Edward's muscles rippled with every stroke. "He has been minister to me," she murmured.

Charles glanced down at his daughter. "We should talk of your evening spent with the lad. I did not intend to leave you two to your own devices. Now, though, the young lord is in dire need of both a shirt and a friend. There are many ways to bring about healing that need no medicine at all."

Isabella squeezed her father's hand and thanked him with a small smile before he continued toward their home. Brushing the tears from her face, the girl slowly made her way to the young nobleman. As she came closer, she saw Edward wince with every cut of the shovel, perspiration glistening on his chest and arms, and dirt caked along his hairline. He didn't meet her glance as she approached, but knelt over the growing hollow, spent and gasping for breath. His eyes were red and wet with tears, his hands swollen, blistered and bleeding.

She knelt beside the boy and peered into the shallow grave. The task seemed impossible. "Edward?"

He shook his head but didn't reply, concentrating only on the fresh earth before him.

"Edward, I am so sorry Rosalie is gone."

She watched him swallow before he looked purposefully away. His sniffled and shook his head.

"Edward, please, let me help you?" she asked.

"I've only one shovel," he muttered. The boy tossed the tool in frustration and wiped at his face. He cringed as his palm made contact with skin.

"Come now, that is not what I meant, sir,"

Edward chanced a look at Isabella, and she immediately ducked her head, unsettled by the naked pain contained in his eyes.

"It is the only way anyone could help," he replied. "She is gone, and she will be gone forever. It is not something that can be undone with your imaginations."

Edward's words stung, but Isabella attempted to put aside the pain. This latest passing had likely torn at the tender wound left by his mother's death, breaking his heart anew. Her father's suggestion she help the healing process seemed an impossible assignment.

The boy leaned over the grave and gingerly grabbed for the shovel. He cringed and his body shuddered as he took the handle firmly in his hands. Clearly, his heart was not the only piece of him that required mending. Glancing toward her homestead, she watched her father and Lord Cullen as they lingered by the well. The nobleman gesticulated wildly, pointing up the hill in their direction. Recalling his callous words from moments earlier, she knew it best not to bring the boy back to the yard and his father's attention.

"You are wrong, sir. There are other ways I might be of assistance. You cannot dig this grave with those open wounds. I cannot bring back your friend, not even with the powers of my mind, but I might help your hands." She stood and swung the sack over her shoulder. "Take a moment's respite and come with me?" she asked.

Edward looked at her balefully and tried unsuccessfully to blink back tears. His face twisted in sorrow and he bit at his lip as he tried to quash his grief. When he finally dropped the shovel at his feet, the girl took it as a sign he would heed her words and follow.

She led the way over the hill and through the tall trees at the edge of their land, picking her way around the thick underbrush, searching for a path she knew by heart but hadn't travelled in many months. Bright red and orange leaves fell through the air and danced around them, then crunched underfoot as they trudged on. Gradually, a soft, rushing murmur grew to the overpowering roar of swiftly moving water.

"This is where my father would take me to swim," she explained as she led him down to the riverbank and knelt at the water's edge. She peered up at the red-faced lad. "The cold water will relieve your sore hands."

Edward knelt beside Isabella and dipped his hands beneath the surface of the glittering stream, hissing in response to the cold and the sting of water against raw flesh. She wished she knew words which might begin to assuage the pain in his heart as well as she'd known what would begin to sooth the pain in his hands. There was no platitude that would not fall flat at his feet, nothing material she could offer which he could not acquire on his own.

Thinking of Edward's advice from the night before, Isabella attempted to put into words what had led her to this place. She tried to lead with love.

"When I came here as a child I was so strong and so free. You've helped me remember how that feels," she offered.

The girl watched the boy's silent tears fall into the water like spring rain. "While my relationship with my father has changed, the memories of our shared past still exist and bring me joy. Your memories will bring you joy, Edward. You will be led by the love you felt for your beast. I know you loved her. Your love kept you here, your love brought us these past four days. I am ever so grateful for them."

Edward glanced at Isabella with damp, red-rimmed eyes laced with sorrow… and something else - something that made her body quake. He stared at her with tender intensity, so raw and vulnerable she knew not whether to flee or to fall toward him. It tore at her senses and burned her with a heat incongruous to the chilly autumn air. His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat and he licked his lips. The boy smelled sharply of hard work and dusty fields.

And quickly, so as not to leave time for fear to forestall her impulsive actions, Isabella loosened the silken ties binding the bodice of her brocade gown. She eased the heavy cloth from her shoulders and let it fall to the ground. Then, kneeling to quickly unlace her boots, she realized her stockings would also have to go. With deft fingers and a determined tug and tussle, she pulled the rough cloth down her legs and finally freed her toes. The sandy soil felt cold beneath her bare feet. She knew the temperature of the water would be more severe still.

"It is not the ocean's crest at the Sunset Mountains, but this is the closest I might come to granting you your wish."

Taking a deep breath, Isabella charged into the river. After three long strides she leapt into the ice cold current, which nearly shocked her senseless. Her heart tore at her chest like a knife's edge with each beat, while needles pricked every spare inch of her skin. With strong strokes, she swam toward the deepest part of the flow, where a tree trunk had lodged against a rock and she could grab hold and catch her breath.

She was surprised to hear splash from the shore, like a sack of rocks had been tossed into the water. A sack of rocks cannot pant though, and Isabella spun around to see Edward's red face and bare arms as he swam out to meet her.

"What are you doing?" she gasped.

"I don't know," he replied through ragged breaths. "I could ask the same of you."

"You said you'd like to see me swim."

"Ha!" Edward laughed. His smile made her heart flutter, or perhaps it was the freezing rush of the stream. "Well done, then."

"I'm sorry for your loss, Edward. Whether steed or slave, whatever you chose to call her, she was your friend. You gave her the best life you -"

Isabella's words were lost in a surge of river water as the trunk she'd been clinging to broke free from it's resting place, unsettling her footing and pulling her under the rushing stream. She tumbled in the torrent, pelted with pebbles, and struggled to right herself, until two large hands closed on her shoulders and moored her so she could find her footing. Gasping for air, she pushed her hair from her eyes to find the topless boy very nearly holding her in his arms. Isabella gasped and Edward released her immediately, but she burned where he'd touched as if his hands were made of fire. Her breath came heavy as she gazed up at him.

"I told you I would watch until forced to save you," Edward teased, a delightful half-smile settling on his countenance.

How dare he taunt when he'd managed to incite these feelings inside her? In retaliation, Isabella skimmed the stream with her hands, splashing freezing water on his face. Edward shook the water from his head, but held his ground. Emboldened, Isabella lunged and used both arms to send a wave of water crashing over the lad, and with that Edward returned the favor. The two jumped, splashed, and dove, pushing and shoving playfully. Isabella knocked Edward over and pulled him under, where they tussled below the surface amidst air bubbles and the fallen leaves and gravel that were tumbling in the rapid stream. Finally their heads emerged and they gasped for air.

Edward looked lighter, like a weight had fallen from his shoulders and was carried off in the current. Isabella smiled. "I told you I could swim, sir - fish or not."

"I never doubted you, but I did have to save you as anticipated."

"I was not swimming when I slipped!"

Edward laughed and rolled his eyes. "Excuses, maiden."

Now, half in and half out of the water, Isabella shivered. "Fine then! Race you to the shore!" she cried. Their mad dash ended in a tie on the riverbank, with both of them sogging and icy cold. The two gasped, bent, trying to catch their breath, both momentarily overtaken with the shock of overtaxed lungs and a bitter, clinging chill. Edward threw himself on the shore and pushed the hair from his face, and Isabella glanced at the boy and startled. His underclothes clung to him like a second skin. She spotted his britches tossed aside on the riverbank.

Wearing just a soaking slip and undergarment, Isabella remembered she might as well have been naked. She glanced about, looking for her pile of discarded clothing, and tried to step quietly away from the boy to retrieve it. Edward glanced up at the girl, and she stopped in her tracks, frozen like a deer in the face of a bow and arrow. He sat still and she stood, and steam may as well have risen off of the wet ground between them.

"What have I done?" she asked.

Edward took pains to gaze at her face. "My hands no longer trouble me."

The hint of a smile ghosted across her lips at the implication of his joke. "We should get back."

Edward gulped. Neither wanted to be the first to look away.

"I've some clothing for you in my bag," she offered, nodding to the pile further up the shore. Edward slowly rose to his feet and stood before her. Isabella's breath caught in her throat, and she slowly lowered her hands so they hung at her sides.

Voices drifted down to them from the back pasture on her property and, the spell broken, Isabella quickly gathered her discarded garments into her arms. She glanced back at the boy before ducking behind a small stand of evergreens, and then shivered and tried to shake herself somewhat drier.

"Bella?" came the boy's voice from the other side of the trees.

She jumped, startled by his sudden proximity. He stood close enough that she could hear his breathing. "My lord?"

Edward reached his hand around the tree trunks and held his fresh tunic in front of her eyes. "This might work for a towel?"

"Thank you," Isabella murmured, plucking the garment from his hand and quickly retreating further into the foliage. She attempted to ignore his presence as she peeled the icy slip and underthings from her freezing body and dried off as best she could, but velvet is not as absorbant as one might hope. The rubbing did bring blood back to the surface of her skin, and she pinked with the friction and pressure. Her limbs trembled as she struggled to pull rumpled clothing over her damp body. Without her slip, her dress stuck to her uncomfortably, and she struggled to make it hang as it should. With a whimper, she tugged back on her wet undergarments, then pulled on her stockings and tied them to her sodden drawers.

After lacing her boots and repinning her wild hair as well as she was able, Isabella peeked out from behind the trees and watched as Edward tied the neck of his undershirt and readjusted his britches. She glanced at the pile of wet fabric at his feet, confirming her suspicions about what little lay between his loins and the autumn air, and grew warm despite her wet underthings.

Edward turned around shyly to see her peering from behind the tree trunk. His cheeks were red enough to appear near purple and his wild hair was littered with small twigs and leaves.

"You have the forest in your hair," Isabella murmured.

The boy bent and shook his head, ruffling the brilliant mop with his hands. Water and wet underbrush fell to the ground. "Better?" he asked, standing upright, using his fingers as a comb.

Isabella could only nod in reply.

" _Your_ hair is fine," the youth commented, finally fixing her with his gaze. "Almost, maybe."

"Almost?" she asked, coming out from behind the tree. Her dress scratched uncomfortably at her chest and over her ribs as she moved.

Edward blinked and bit his lip, and walked slowly in her direction, coming close enough that Isabella's breathing quickened and her skin pricked. He stood over her as she pressed her body against the tree trunk, feeling quite silly. Gingerly, he extricated a small, golden leaflet from the tresses piled on her head. "Now it's perfect," he murmured with a small smile.

Isabella's heart fluttered. "Magnetite," she murmured.

The boy's smile broadened. "Excuse me?"

"The rocks which -"

"Push and pull at one another," he finished for her.

"You know them?"

"We learned in seminary. What about magnets, maiden?"

"They help my father to heal wounds. Could they be the key to the forces that move the stars? Perhaps it is what I feel pushing and pulling at people?"

"It feels likely," the boy murmured.

"It is a feeling I would like to study further," she replied.

The lad smiled down at her. "No doubt you would solve the riddle."

The maiden took a deep breath, picked up the discarded ball of wet linen at her feet and wrung it dry the best she could. "I didn't fancy a swim when I woke this morning."

"I haven't yet slept," he replied, gazing down at her.

"You should have come for my aid."

The lad stepped away as if suddenly nervous. "You know I couldn't call at your chamber."

Memories of last night flooded her mind; her hair, his chest, his groin, her room, her breast, her hands. And now they stood in the forest, him without undergarments, her without a shift. Their eyes met and tension sprung between them, not close and warm like it had been in the night in the barn, but cold and alarming, as if they had accidentally moved beyond their limits and knew they could not go back.

Once again, a cadre of male voices drifted to them on the chill wind. They both glanced in the direction of the pasture.

"I shall go directly to the house," she said as much to herself as to the boy. "But you require bandages if you are to continue your work." She glanced at the bright turquoise vault overhead. "Meet me at your chamber with the crest of the sun."

The boy's face blanched. Isabella sighed in frustration and shook her head.

"You have let my father's clinic for your stay, sir. It is where we keep the healing salves."

Edward took a deep breath. "Right. Of course." He glanced about for his own discarded clothing. "We should return. Rosalie awaits." Isabella could not help but notice that new tears sparkled, unshed in his eyes.

"I am so sorry for your loss, Edward."

He nodded, looked away, and gloomily snatched his wet underthings from the ground.

Isabella gathered her satchel, offered up the rations she'd gathered in what felt like another lifetime, and then stuffed her own soggy shift inside. She cleared her throat and held the bag open for the boy. He raised his eyebrows in reply. "Please, I've already seen them. And now that they are clean, I may as well hang them to dry."

Edward stepped tentatively forward and dropped his undergarments in with her own. Her hands shook as she began to arrange the bundle on her back, but Edward pulled the package from her hands and swung it over his shoulder instead. "Without a horse, the men would haul the burdens, right?" he asked.

"This wasn't how I aimed to get to our land." She hadn't meant to label the imaginary land as their own, but once spoken it felt comfortable and exciting all at once. And Edward's mouth almost turned up in a smile.

"She is free, nonetheless," he replied, taking the lead on their walk toward the Swan's homestead.

"If we can create worlds with our intention, and we wish Rosalie peace, health and leisure, might our land be your heaven? I would like to believe it so." Isabella murmured.

"But isn't heaven reserved for those with souls?" Edward challenged, glancing over his shoulder at the maiden.

"I am sorry I quibbled with the possibility, sir. She had your heart, so why couldn't she also have a soul?"

A smile broke over the boy's face that seemed to have a direct link to Isabella's chest. Her heart fluttered and beat against her bodice as if it were a bird batting its wings through the underbrush, attempting to take flight.

"You've told me many stories, Edward, but I haven't given you the opportunity to tell me about Rosalie. Would you entertain me with her tale as we travel back to the yard?"

"It would lighten my heavy heart, maiden."

"Then let it be so."

* * *

 **A/N: What next? Where was Carlisle? Did Charles have any idea he was suggesting Isabella wrestle Edward in a river? Edward seemed to man up and actually face Isabella after their swim.**

 **My life has shifted into high gear the past couple of weeks with a new job. This fic may update in 2 weeks. I may try to get out a mini chapter next Friday so I don't leave you hanging. I'll do my fanfic best, but also want to make sure that I can continue to be proud of the words I put on the screen.**

 **Finally, my thoughts are with Iris who usually pimps this fic, but is in surgery today. Hopefully all goes well.**

 **~M**


	8. Chapter 8

**Twilight is not mine, but it's weird how I write about it so much.**

 **This chapter was possible because I work with fanfic superheros. Thank you Suebee0619, Robsmyyummy Cabanaboy & Nicffwhisperer! I am Steve Trevor to your Wonder Woman.**

* * *

 **Chapter 8**

"This may surprise you, but I was not a rugged youngster," Edward began.

Isabella met his smirk with dancing eyes, but chose not to comment. They ambled through the autumn underbrush, neither admitting out loud that they hoped to make the most of their walk home, but both acknowledging the desire with slow steps and casual eye contact. The forest path was narrow, their bodies nearly touched. The freezing cold bath left their skin awake to all manner of sensation, and they dazzled in one another's presence as if they were walking through a forest for the first time.

"My father zealously groomed my older brothers for battle and adventure, while my mother, having the misfortune not to be blessed with a daughter, chose her youngest for the role of companion and pet. She loved me fiercely, dressed me in all manner of finery and paraded me before her friends."

"You were spoiled." Isabella giggled. "Were you a terror?"

Edward's hangdog expression was answer enough. "You should ask my brothers."

"I shall remember to ask, right after I battle Sir Emmett in your name in our pickle competition."

Edward stopped in his tracks. "Come to think of it, I don't know that I want you pickling with Emmett."

Isabella giggled again but Edward didn't join in the mirth. "You are serious? About an imaginary pickle fight?"

Edward shrugged his shoulders. "I don't want my brother to share anything about the day you and I spent -"

"Pickling with one another?" Isabella interjected.

Edward couldn't help but smile. "Exactly."

Isabella beamed. First the quip about his hands no longer hurting, and now this. She quite enjoyed wicked puns.

"Then you have my word, sir. I vow never to pickle with your brother. You shall always be my preferential pickling partner of the opposite sex."

Edward could not quite look Isabella in the eyes. He gripped the sack of wet underthings and grinned at the turquoise sky overhead as the two set out once more.

"With that settled, I would very much like to hear the rest of this story. I thought you were to tell me about Rosalie."

"Of course. Rosalie was a gift from my father. Father's gifts are not meant not to delight, but to teach a lesson. And after my mother's passing…" Edward took a deep breath and shook his head. "I'm getting ahead of myself. This story would not exist were it not for my mother, Esme. She would have enjoyed your company, Bella. She regularly traveled beyond the city's walls with alms for the peasants who toiled so we might have wheat to grind to flour and cloth on our backs. Those were some of my earliest memories - the long carriage rides, the unfamiliar scenery, and lives that looked nothing like my own."

Isabella tried to put aside the sting left by the idea Lady Esme would have enjoyed her company due to the fact she visited peasants as a pastime. "'Tis why you desire to travel," Isabella surmised.

"Possibly, for I did not inherit it from father. He didn't approve, but he loved his wife more than his own soul and would not keep her from her life's calling. She held such sway over his heart that sometimes he allowed her to intervene in his work, and criminals might leave his chamber with charity instead of suffering the lash. When a small boy came before Father on charges of repeated theft from the baker, my mother interceded on his behalf. Most of the boy's family had recently died, his father was sick, and there were hungry mouths to feed at home. Mother brought them food and medicine and was taken ill almost as soon as she arrived back home.

"The black death?" Isabella guessed.

Edward nodded but did not meet her gaze.

"You are lucky to be alive."

"They sent me to the countryside and she was gone when I returned. Anything that touched her skin had been burned, all except some old clothing in a forgotten wardrobe in the attic. The boy inevitably came before my father again, for his family still needed to eat. Later, my father told me proudly he'd spared the boy. He'd not taken his life; he'd only taken his hands."

Isabella shuddered, overtaken with horrified grief. She'd met Alice for the first time shimmying down the trunk of a pear tree, stealing fruit after her mother passed away. What might Isabella's life have been like if her father, instead of befriending Alice and offering her work, sought to relieve the child of her hands? How might that have changed Isabella's own nature?

Edward trudged ahead, but the maiden grabbed his shirtsleeve and held tight. "It seems a miracle something as good as you could come to me from such tragedy."

"Perhaps I'm not as good as you think," he replied, shrugging her off.

Isabella stepped before the boy, blocking his path and brazenly gazing into his eyes.

Edward flinched. If he were good he would fail to notice how the leaves danced about Isabella's head, highlighting flecks of orange in her hair and the sparkles in her eyes. He wouldn't admire her figure, now on display without her smock. A good man wouldn't consider creamy skin underneath just one layer of delicate cloth. He wouldn't have stood before her half naked and wet while his body betrayed him. He wouldn't have gazed at her openly. He wouldn't imagine the moment taking place without a shift or underclothes.

"I know how good it feels to be with you, Edward. That is proof enough of your virtue."

The maiden was mistaken. "When we first met you had high standards for proof. I believe you were searching for weights and measures to gauge our souls."

"And then you taught me to consider actions and feelings in my theorem."

"After all these actions and feelings between us, have you made progress in your equations?"

"Not yet. I've been taken with other pursuits." The maiden blushed and glanced over her shoulder. "We should get back. I must…" Her voice trailed off as she glanced down at her gown. "And we must see to your wounds. But first you should finish your tale."

Edward could see the Swan's homestead just over the top of Isabella's head. Three long strides and they'd emerge from the treeline onto a rolling field of golden wheat. His father said they would purchase another horse from a farmer down the lane and they would be off early on the morrow, heading back to Center City so he could return to his studies. He wanted nothing more than to retreat to the woods and tell tales of his childhood. He could scarcely allow himself to admit what else he might like, and whether those tales were told wearing nothing but wet linen on the side of a riverbank.

"Shall we rest here so you might finish your story?" Isabella asked, looking about for comfortable seating.

"We must return to the real world, maiden."

"I prefer the one we've created," the girl murmured. "I'd rather not return. And would you call me by my name? "

"What would you do in our land, Isabella?"

The girl didn't hesitate. "I would study the stars and solve their riddles. I would understand what draws one person to another like the planets are drawn through the skies. What would you do, Edward?"

The answer came to him quickly but died before it reached his lips. He would not be a priest.

xXxXx

Charles Swan cleared his throat, knocked at the door of his daughter's bedchamber and stood in wait. Just three days earlier he would not have hesitated to turn the knob after announcing his presence, but this day he held back. This morning his heart had swelled to bursting when he took his sobbing daughter into his arms and offered the same comfort he'd afforded when she'd scraped a knee or tumbled from the branches of an apple tree. While the bonds of fealty might stretch and grow with time, they undoubtedly remained intact. Isabella was his child still and found solace in the comfort of a father's arms. Yet scarcely a moment later, the little girl had grown into a woman before his eyes as she gazed with heavy lids and parted lips at the vision of a topless lad.

A young woman of strong character, Isabella strove to act with morality and righteousness, driven to help others before she helped herself. The shirtless nobleman was bound to the seminary, broken hearted, emotionally abandoned and attempting the impossible in order to pay respects to a pet. The two were of similar age and intellect, and Charles hoped she might act as balm for the young lord's suffering before setting about to complete her daily chores. Instead, the two young people disappeared, leaving the beloved horse to bake in the back pasture.

Charles believed the best of men, but the best of men did not tarry in town late into the night. The public house closed soon after dark. Inhabitants of private homes retired early in order that those industrious souls could wake refreshed and ready to labor some more… Except for one cottage where candles burned through the dark hours and shades were drawn during the day. Enormous geldings made obvious sentinels to those riding past after visiting an ailing woman and her newborn babe.

A boy shouldn't be blamed for the predilections of his father. A daughter's actions shouldn't be suspect based on the choices of baser women.

Charles went to knock again at his daughter's bedchamber, but before knuckles could strike wood Isabella flung open the door. Her eyes sparkled, her face was flushed, and her hair appeared damp at the edges.

"Father?" she asked brightly.

Charles peered over her head at the empty room, the unmade bed, and the pile of sodden linen in the corner. Suddenly woman, his daughter's private pursuits were rendered mysterious. Although she looked in every way the same as his child of yesterday, the lovely girl smiling before him was transformed. "I'm glad I tracked you down, Daughter. Half of Bryn Athyn has descended upon our back pasture given the recompense offered by Lord Cullen, yet his son has disappeared. Have you seen the young man?"

"We thought we'd heard voices on the pasture," Isabella remarked, glancing over her father's shoulder and down the hall.

"You heard them in your chamber?"

"When I was outside."

"With the lad?"

Isabella slid past her father and took his hand as she led him from her doorway. "His palms are torn to shreds. I sent him to your workroom in hopes that we might mend them enough so he can return to his work."

"Daughter?" He held her shoulders, looking her over for signs of harm.

"Yes, Father?"

"What came of your night with the boy?"

Isabella's cheeks pinked and she glanced toward the stones of the floor. "We ate dinner and spoke of his god, then worked over the mare."

Charles waited, but Isabella offered nothing more. "He holds tight to his faith?"

"As tightly as someone might cleave after their dearest prayers have gone unanswered."

Charles glanced over his daughter's shoulder at the door to his workroom. "Have you been to the coop this morning?"

"No, Father."

"I'll get started on the young lord's hands. Meet us in the clinic with an egg after you've finished with the pen."

"Yes, Father," she replied with a curtsy, before stealing not one, but three furtive glances at the door of the workroom.

xXxXx

Charles didn't wait to let himself in after knocking on his own workroom door. Inside he found neatly made sleeping pallets on either side of the chamber, usually reserved for ailing villagers who required quarantine or constant care. A pile of richly dyed material and a gleaming leather traveling satchel on the nearest cot made it obvious his room did not currently house a local laborer. Instead, a tall nobleman stood with his back to the door surveying the powders and ointments sitting atop shelves lining the far wall of the chamber. The boy's hair stuck out in wild disarray as if he'd been caught in a storm, and he seemed to be fiddling with the buttons on his breeches.

Charles cleared his throat and the boy spun around. "Master Swan," he gasped in surprise, as if there might be someone more likely to steal into the clinic.

"What do you know of medicine?" Charles asked, joining the boy in front of his homemade treasures.

Edward shook his head. "Almost nothing. There is some training at seminary, but it begins later in the course of our studies."

"The seminary. Right. Take a seat, son," Charles instructed, pulling a bench from underneath his work desk. "Let me see those hands which have so distracted my daughter."

Edward tentatively held out his arms with palms upturned, but looked at his lap instead of his healer and host. Charles gingerly gripped the boy's hands, peering down at them, surveying the blisters and broken flesh. "Manual labor is not meant to be a sudden occupation."

"My emotions sometimes get the best of me," the boy explained.

"The best of all men, my lad." Charles took a seat and noticed purple crescents beneath the boy's eyes. "'Tis not an easy task, sitting at a deathbed. It is hard work when spirit meets body and comes into the world and more difficult still when spirit leaves body and departs. You endured a taxing night."

The boy's eyes sparkled and blinked as he attempted to hold back tears.

"It was both brave and honorable of you to wait on your steed alone. Given notice, my daughter would have kept vigil at your side through the long hours of night, as she has likewise done with me and my ailing patients in this very room. Her heart would have crowded out ideas of propriety."

The boy swallowed before answering. "She has beautiful heart and a wise mind."

"How did you take to women's work, yesterday?" Charles asked as he rose to survey his medicines.

Edward chuckled nervously. "They deserve the same credit as Emmett and Jasper. The work is essential and unforgiving. I was not a quick study."

Charles rooted through jars, searching for a something strong enough to heal, but also gentle enough for the delicate hands of a nobleman. "I struggled with womanly labor for years after Isabella's mother passed. Were I alone I would have given up. But I would do anything, move heaven and earth to preserve the one bit of evidence of how dearly I loved my wife."

Finding the jar, Charles turned back to the boy, looking him steadily in the eye. "She is the light of my life."

"I've no doubt, sir."

Charles pulled fresh bandages from a drawer and sat back in front of the lad. He clasped one of the boy's hands in his and began dabbing at the wound with the healing salve. The boy tried his best not to flinch, attempting in earnest to look Isabella's father in the eye.

"Do you know that it is not so rare for noblemen from Center City to travel into the countryside? You see, as we face the coming winter with fear, they offer comfort and insulation against the elements in the form of gold. They do not consider hearts and minds so much, but buy their pleasure like a bolt of cloth."

Edward glanced at his lap again and Charles tightened his grip.

"I sold my skill, our food, and let my home in order to keep my daughter alive and well through the dark months. I've considered only one kind of safety. Should I regret my naivete?"

Edward met Charles' hard glare with eyes flashing in anger. "My father has not and will not touch her, Master Swan."

Charles narrowed his eyes. "Have you? Will you?" Edward gasped and Charles tightened his grasp on the wounded hand.

"Yesterday she bandaged a knife wound. This morning I caught her while falling," the boy admitted.

"You've made vows, but you and your father are endowed with the same equipment between your legs. Relatives share temperament more often than not."

"I assure you I am not my father. I do not partake in his proclivities."

"You haven't answered me. You and your father have no reason to stay past daybreak tomorrow. Do I have your word you will not touch her in the hours left remaining? Swear it, or you shall leave immediately and that horse of yours shall be carted for rendering."

"You have my word, sir."

Isabella burst into the clinic like a springtime ray of sunshine, bright and new in a room dark with accusation. "Were you thinking of egg whites to bind the wound, Father?" she asked, setting a bowl of brown eggs on the workbench.

"After a look at these angry fists I believe honey is indicated," Charles replied, dropping the boy's hands and joining his daughter at his workstation.

"Should we add anything else?" she asked of her father, while staring instead at the lad on the bench. Charles blocked her view of the boy.

"Calendula, I think," he said, taking down a jar of dried golden petals.

"But it is for babies' bottoms!"

"The skin is the same," he remarked, spooning herb into a small bowl.

Father and daughter settled into wordless work, pouring, powdering, mixing, until with the stir of a ladle and a look in the eye they knew the mixture was complete.

"This should work wonders, my lord," Isabella remarked.

Charles eased into his seat across from the boy and Isabella brought over the bowl and bandages. Charles took care to thoroughly press the mixture into the tender flesh, eliciting a wince and a hiss of pain.

"Father!" Isabella admonished.

"We can't allow easy entrance for the dark humors, Isabella." He pressed more paste into a deep wound at the base of the boy's thumb. Edward bit his lip.

"Please, father." Isabella grabbed a bandage and took to her knees before the boy. "My father remained at Missus Fallowell's side well into the night. Perhaps his fatigue has made him careless."

Isabella took the boy's hand tenderly in hers and Edward felt powerless to pull it away. She gently pressed the clean cloth over his pulse, allowing her fingertips to linger for the briefest of moments, delighting in the feel of his heart. Then, careful and close, she wound the cloth over and around, patting, fitting, gently pressing against the honey and flesh, assuring a seal.

Tying a careful knot, she glanced into the boy's eyes, filled with gratitude and pain.

"That is how it is done."

* * *

 **A/N: Two fathers, two dead wives, two very different ways of dealing.**

 **Who thinks Edward can keep his promise?**

 **Until next week.**

 **Much love ~ M**


	9. Chapter 9

**Life happened, but this story wasn't finished.**

 **Be warned ~ some graphic content ahead. Childbirth is no joke.**

 **Chapter 9**

Soft cloth wound around hands and over angry wounds. On her knees before Edward, Isabella let her fingertips skim from wrists to palms and over each knuckle while her father tidied his workbench. She worked deftly but gently, with swift and certain movements. One hand finished, wrapped and tied, she held it tenderly for the space of a breath, enough to feel the warmth bleeding through linen before moving on to the other.

As her father sifted through unguents and tinctures, the maiden felt free to smile openly at the young lord as she worked. Yet Edward appeared anxious, first stealing a glance, then looking past her to Master Swan.

"Where does your work bring you today, Father?" she asked as she tried yet again to catch Edward's attention with her eyes.

"There is much to occupy my time here on the homestead."

This turn of events was unexpected, and both Edward and Isabella glanced at the healer. "Certainly you must check on Angela and the babe?"

"You shall go in my stead," Master Swan replied as he dusted calendula powder from the tabletop.

"What?"

Charles took a break and smiled down at his daughter. "I've lately left too much of our home in your care. I have shirked my responsibility to both you and to our guests in favor of villagers who took me miles from where I was needed most."

Isabella wiped her hands and gathered her supplies. "I can care for our homestead. I've done so since I was a child."

"You are scarce more than a child still."

"You know I am capable and nearly full grown. I am the same age as the Missus Fallowell!"

"Then she will enjoy the visit of a companion instead of an old man, and I shall remain here with our guests." Charles turned back to his work, very taken with the order of the tins on the uppermost shelf.

" _You_ are her healer," Isabella protested.

"And what should you do in case of fever?" Charles asked. Chamomile was moved to the right of calendula.

"Warm linden and cool cloths."

"And humor?" Jars of comfrey and coltsfoot were placed next to chamomile.

"Plantain and aromatics."

"Hemorrhage?" he asked, locating dandelion root mixed in with jars of mint.

"Lavender."

Charles took pause to smile at his daughter. "I could continue this challenge, but I've no need. You might deny it, but look at the bandages on this young man." He nodded toward the nobleman, whose face went red with his mention, but whose hands were clean and neatly bandaged, folded in his lap. "You are a healer, my girl, perhaps one day soon a better one than I. Take my bag and make haste and you might be back before supper."

xXxXx

Edward and Isabella left the dim of the stone cottage and stepped into bright rays cast by the slanting sun as it skirted the late autumn horizon. Birds broke from their southward migration and twittered on bald limbs. Leaves scuttled across gray flagstones on a brisk breeze. The girl shaded her eyes and looked up at the lad. Now that they were alone, the boy unabashedly gazed down at her. She fought her impulse to hold his hand once more, instead holding tight to the strap of her father's bulky medicine satchel. Her traveling cloak weighed heavily on her shoulders, but she buoyed her spirits thinking Edward's bandages might need re-wrapping at least once before he departed for Center City.

"I might help you ready your horse," Edward suggested with a nod toward the barn.

The privacy of their usual meeting place beckoned with cool air and close quarters where they might whisper. Isabella imagined what she might wish for within those wooden walls and felt weak in the knees. Male voices drifted from afar and the two youngsters glanced beyond the barn to the unkempt golden green weeds of the back pasture. Figures toiled as dust swirled through the silvery sunshine.

Isabella sighed. "I can outfit Strawberry on my own. You have another horse to tend to now that I have mended your hands."

"You've ministered to more than my hands, maiden."

Isabella smiled up at the lad. "You are my minister, sir. You've freed my mind to join fancy with reality. You've opened up possibilities before me I had never considered. Magnets. Physics. My mother's stars."

"We are minister one to the other then. An unlikely pair."

Her hands itched to touch his once more, so she busied herself with readjusting her father's satchel. Edward, mistaking her attempt at distraction for actual inconvenience, plucked the bag from her hands and tossed it over his shoulder. "It is the least I could do to repay your kindness."

Isabella sighed and willfully ignored the way the nobleman winced as he gripped the leather strap. Instead she admired the strength of his arms, the straightness of his back, the affection in his eyes. Twice in a day he'd carried her bag, and twice in a day it caused her heart to flutter. Surely, no other heart was ever as affected by a tall lad willing to bear a middling load.

The two strolled toward the barn with small steps and deep breaths, picking their way through what remained of the kitchen garden. Isabella spotted the gray-green remains of the gourd she'd dropped in surprise days before. It had been picked over by scavenging birds and half returned to dust and loam. Four days ago its pulp burst forth brilliant orange. Four days later the gourd lay in a graying heap while her heart threatened to burst from her chest. If it did she was certain it would blaze brighter than the gourd and the autumn sun combined.

"What were you thinking when you met me?" Isabella asked, taking pause to sneak a glance at the boy by her side. "We first set eyes on one another right here, just four days past."

The boy grinned and gazed toward the horizon. "I was thinking I best not speak. I did not trust my tongue."

Isabella smirked. "Perchance you were afraid to speak, but you were not afraid to look."

She made a point of looking, head to toe, like he had when he'd stood in the lane by his father's side; from his stockings, to his snug velvet breeches, to his white undershirt and the golden vest stretched across his chest, to his pinking cheeks and shy, emerald eyes.

"I couldn't help myself, maiden. What did you think of me?" He bit his lip and peeked at the girl.

"I imagined you and your father walked straight from my fairy visions. I'd been wondering about other worlds and you appeared in your colorful costumes, near sparkling in the evening's half-light."

"Your cloth had no need to dance or shine, maiden. You were brilliant, and I was rendered near speechless."

Isabella trailed a finger along the low wall. The stones were cold and rough, in sharp contrast to the warmth radiating from the boy, so different from the tender skin of his hands and wrists. She glanced about and then leaned against the facade, willing the walk to the barn to extend into a journey.

She gazed unabashedly into his eyes and saw herself reflected back. "Edward?"

"Maiden?"

"Have you... ever... fancied a girl?"

"Admired another?"

" _Another_?"

"I've made vows."

"I'm not inquiring about actions, but about a feeling. Has there ever been someone, perhaps on your countryside visits, or whose vision you caught from your chamber window, who made you… _feel_?"

The boy shook his head. "Never, maiden."

The word pierced her chest like the tip of a lance. " _Never_?"

"Your father -"

"My father?" she interrupted.

"Bella!"

The voice from the lane startled the pair who had forgotten anyone else might exist in the world. They drew away from one another with haste and spun to find a young man standing in the dusty road just beyond the wall. He had sun-soaked skin, hair the color of midnight, and a broad smile.

"Jacob?" Isabella exclaimed.

The man tipped his hat in greeting and let himself through the Swan's gate as comfortably as if he were returning to his own home. He led a gray and white dappled mare. "You say my name as if it were a question. Have you forgotten me in the fortnight since we last spoke?"

Edward watched Isabella rush to the young man and offer her hand, only to be taken up in an enormous hug instead.

"No, of course not, sir. You simply snuck up on me."

"I lead a large horse whenever I try for stealth." Jacob chuckled. He held the maiden at arm's length, his eyes alight with admiration.

Edward cleared his throat and Jacob, startled, dropped Isabella's hands and gave the nobleman a quick once over. With a wry smile, he offered a sweeping bow. "Jacob Black, at your service, my lord."

"Jacob, don't be silly. Get up. This is the young Lord Cullen," Isabella explained, purposefully putting space between herself and her old friend. "Edward, Jacob is our neighbor. His farm lays just beyond the Brandon's land."

" _Edward_ , huh?" Jacob asked. "I've only heard tell of him as Lord Cullen."

Isabella's cheeks colored.

"And this little lady's name is Leah," Jacob added, bringing up the mare and patting her neck. "I heard somebody here needed a horse."

"You're giving her away?" Isabella asked.

"I'm not giving. I heard how much _Edward_ is offering. After the accident, father can't work, nor can he ride. Leah's just another one of the pretty girls left for me to feed. The decision was clear. I couldn't very well sell off Rebecca."

Isabella tittered, but covered her mouth when she noticed Edward's displeasure.

"Leah's standoffish at first, _Edward_ , but she's a good girl. You just have to get to know one another and she'll get you to whichever castle you need to get to next."

Edward approached the animal with a strained smile.

"Edward just lost his Rosalie," Isabella explained.

"Sorry to hear it, sir."

Edward gently patted the horse's mane, then began a tentative inspection, pressing his bandaged hands over her back and along her sides. Leah stomped and flicked her tail, but obediently held her ground.

"Edward is wonderful with horses," Isabella gushed.

"Yeah?" Jacob asked, looking at the young lord with renewed interest. He didn't consider noblemen likely hostlers.

"What do you think, Edward?' Isabella asked.

The young man's eyes were sad when he looked up at her. "I believe she's fit enough to bring me home. I'll take good care of her, Mister Black."

"And I'll take good care of your gold, sir."

"Jacob!" Isabella admonished with a playful shove.

"But I will, Bella," the boy joked, glancing back at her, then fingering the edge of her travelling cloak. "Where are you off to?"

"I'm to check on Angela for Father."

"Has she birthed Ben's child, then?"

"Yes, but hangs precariously in the balance. She was well when Father left after nightfall yesterday, but close watch must be kept."

"And you are to do it?" the boy asked in surprise.

"Isabella is a natural healer," the young lord countered in the maiden's defense.

Isabella shook her head as she gazed up at the nobleman. "Yours is a sweet sentiment, Edward, but Father is the healer."

"Your humility obscurs your brilliance, maiden. Your fairy stories are code for heavenly physics, and when you talk of assisting your father, you ignore that you've mastered his art."

"You are too kind."

"And you do not give yourself enough credit."

As they spoke Isabella and Edward were drawn to one another from either side of Leah. The horse served as an unwitting equine barrier to their physical affection, and it looked for all the world to Jacob as if the two might try to climb the horse so they might close the distance between one another. Instead, he grabbed Leah's bridle and tugged, guiding her suddenly forward, startling Edward and Isabella and breaking the spell.

"So, why are you going and not your father?" Jacob asked.

Isabella shook her head in an effort to clear her mind and order her thoughts. "He is too taken with the activity on this farm."

"Yes, I've caught wind there might be another opportunity to accumulate gold on your homestead today."

"We've hired hands to dig up a spot on the back pasture. See? Just over the ridge." Isabella pointed beyond the barn, and Jacob shielded his eyes against the slanting sunlight.

"Why does Master Swan need a ditch?"

"It is for Lord Cullen. A grave. For Rosalie."

Jacob turned to survey Edward again, wondering what kind of horse religion might be practiced by fancy noblemen who made eyes at Isabella Swan. Yet the lord simply looked like a man of wealth, inexperienced with animals and unused to days in the sun. A man who used long winded words that made Isabella blush and fret. A man who had the means to offer up gold so laborers might bury his livestock.

Jacob had mouths to feed through the long winter, so he squared his shoulders, discarded his pride, and dropped his gaze to the earth at the nobleman's feet. "Horses are large, Lord Cullen. Six feet deep of hard ground, enough for a grown mare, is an impressive amount of earth to move. Let me lend my muscle to the task."

"I believe we have all the help necessary to complete the work required," Edward was quick to reply.

"But, Edward, Jacob is a special friend, and it would mean much to me to know his family is well taken care of during the dark and cold months ahead."

The lord stiffened. "Of course, maiden. I will honor whatever you wish, as long as it is within my power. My father has the final say, but if you ask, I'll gladly plead Mister Black's case."

Isabella sighed contentedly. "Thank you, sir. I'll take Leah to the barn for boarding, for I have to ready Strawberry. You might bring Jacob with you to Rosalie's grave. The work shall be quickly completed with his able assistance."

"Of course, maiden. Take care on your journey. Be safe."

"I shall return quickly, like the eventide chases the setting sun."

Edward left the maiden's side and set out for the back pasture with her strong, capable, callous-handed, _special_ friend, and eventide seemed to win the race. For although they walked into the sunlight, the world around him appeared dimmer. And when he considered Jacob brought a horse to carry him home, and strong arms that might speed Rosalie's burial, the boy's heart grew darker still.

xXxXx

Isabella left Strawberry to graze in a small, weed-choked side yard and made her way up a half-hidden flagstone path to a worn wooden door. The door swung inward before she could knock.

"Bella, Bella Bella!" a little girl called, launching herself over the threshold and wrapping her pudgy arms around the maiden's knees. The girl grinned up at Isabella, her face smudged with oats and jam.

"Samantha!" a tired voice called. "What in the world has gotten into you, girl?"

"It's Bella Swan, Mama!" the tiny girl screeched. "Bella, Bella, Bella!" The girl jumped with her arms still holding tight, and Isabella had to brace herself against the wall of the cottage.

"Bella?" the woman's voice called out.

"Yes, Missus Brandon."

"Oh, my, Isabella! I wasn't expecting you." Missus Brandon appeared in the doorway with corset loosened and a tiny baby feeding at a large, pale bosom, while another bald little boy held her threadbare skirts in his fists. Alice's stepmother pushed loose tendrils of hair from her flushed face. "I'm glad it's just you, sweet girl, 'cause if I had to pry this greedy Gus away from his milk people as far as Center City would hear his complaint." Missus Brandon bobbled the feeding baby and her bare bosom wobbled in response. Its twin threatened to quiver free from her loosened corset. The baby held onto the breast with his tiny hand and made tiny sniffling noises as he eagerly fed.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Missus Brandon."

"No bother at all. Come inside. I have water on and could pour you some tea."

"Thank you, ma'am, but I am on my way to check on the Missus Fallowell."

"How is the young Missus? I heard tell from Alice she was left on the brink after the birth of her little one."

"She's greatly improved, ma'am, but needs close monitoring."

"Thank the Lord," Missus Brandon muttered as she gave the sign of the cross, her fingertips brushing against the her bared breast.

"I've come to ask for Alice's assistance, Missus. We have a small army of men working our back pasture and noble guests from Center City as boarders.

"And how might Alice help with that lot, besides making moon eyes at the men?"

"They'll need their sustenance, and father's sent me off."

"Well, I don't know. Alice is in charge of the rest of the little ones and they're out back pulling carrots and turnips."

"There would be recompense, ma'am. The lord has quite a sizeable purse, and he has been scattering gold the way farmers scatter seed."

Missus Brandon's dark eyes widened. She slipped a finger between the infant's mouth and her nipple, releasing the babe with a pop. She hefted her breast into the corset as she shifted the bewildered babe to her hip. "Gold? You're certain?"

"I'll make sure of it, Missus. Could you send Alice and tell her to take charge of my kitchen?"

"Carrots and turnips can wait in the ground while these noblemen and their gold come passing through. I'll march her right out to you, Bella."

"I must be off, Missus. Please give Alice my kindest thanks and I shall see her at father's as soon as I am back."

xXxXx

A lightly trodden path through tall willows led the way to Ben and Angela Fallowell's dwelling at the back of a pasture, just before a shining silver pond. The cottage's dark clay walls still smelled of freshly tilled earth and hay. Its thatched hut was thick and golden, having never seen the cold and wet of winter. Tiny starts of bright yellow goldenrod decorated the ground in front of the humble dwelling, evidence of the tender care lavished on the little home. Smoke wafted from the gray stone chimney, and a hushed melody, soft and sweet, was whispered on the air.

 _A maiden mother, meek and mild_

 _In cradle keep, a knave child_

 _That softly sleep: she sat and sang,_

 _Baw me bairne, sleep softly now._

Isabella tapped on the rough wooden door, clutching her father's satchel and a pot of plum jam the Missus Brandon had offered as a gift to the new parents. She tried to tamp down the fluttering sensation in her belly betraying her uncertainty about tending to the new mother and babe on her own.

"Coming!" came a hushed voice from within the cabin, followed by quick footsteps. "I've just got the babe to sleep, Master Sw-"

Angela startled when she saw Isabella at her doorstep.

"T'is no master, I'm afraid," Isabella apologized, willing herself to act calm and confident in her father's stead.

"Bella!" the young mother cheered. "I was expecting your father."

"And I was expecting you to be in bed."

"The door won't answer itself, I'm afraid."

"Father sent me in his place. We've had visitors and mishap at our homestead."

Angela's tired eyes sparkled and she opened wide the door and stepped aside, allowing room for Isabella to enter the tiny abode. The young mother was pale and pink-eyed, her hair a tumble of dark brown ringlets, wearing just her nightgown. "I've heard nothing of mishap but that a prince from the capitol came calling for your father by name."

"If I visited next week I'm certain you'd have heard tales of an emperor and his court from across the Distant Sea. It is just a nobleman and his son. A Cullen."

"'Tis _just_ a Cullen? How jaded you have become. Is it Sir Emmett?" Angela asked excitedly, collecting Isabella's travelling cloak and hanging it on the hook by the fire.

Isabella shook her head. She considered sharing the imaginary plans for a future pickling competition with Edward's older brother, but thought better of it out of consideration for his feelings. "It is not the knight. Lord Cullen is traveling with his youngest son. This Cullen is nothing like the tales I've heard of Sir Emmett." Isabella ducked her head, peering into her father's satchel, hoping to hide the way her cheeks were suddenly burning.

"Tell me more?" Angela pled, slipping onto the bed in the corner of the room, peeking quickly into a woven basket at her side.

"Is this?" Bella asked, coming closer. It was. A tiny pink babe, with round, rosy cheeks and a head of dark curls lay underneath a small scrap of blanket, making sucking motions in her sleep.

"She is beautiful, Angela."

"She is perfect," the new mother agreed, stroking the tiny ringlets and tucking in the blanket.

"To think she wasn't here just a week ago."

"To think she is Ben's child." This time Angela's cheeks were the ones to pink and she dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve. A tear escaped nonetheless and trickled down the new mother's face. "I've wept more these three days than in all my life." Angela sniffled. "I believe bringing her into this world broke open my heart."

"Father said nothing of your heart."

Angela giggled with tears still in her eyes. "Yes, I suppose she's broken open other areas as well. Shall we get to it?"

Isabella willed herself to remain stoic. "Will you mind it terribly?"

"Three days and my sister, mother-in-law, and your father have all seen me bare. Motherhood is not a modest business. Tell me of the travellers and I will find it easier to forget your inspection."

Not eager to add her name to the growing list, Isabella first made herself busy and poured water from the hearth to bathe her hands and soak her linens. Angela laid a scrap of cloth over her bedding. "I am glad you've come, Isabella. Ben went back the the workshop today. My sister had to return to her own little ones."

"Is it difficult here on your own?"

"I can get nothing done while she wakes, although mother says that will come with time. Wait until your third, she says. So I suppose I am waiting. I wait as I tread paths in the floor as I walk her to and fro when she wails. I wait as I rock for hours on end. And if she is content I sit and speak with her. She rolls her little head and waves her fists as I babble on. I suppose it will be less lonely when Charlotte might reply back."

"Charlotte?" Isabella asked as she made her way to the bed.

Angela's eyes glittered before she hung her head in shame. "I know it is bad luck to speak her name early, but if she lives long enough for Friar Randolph to come for christening, she will be Charlotte, after your father. Without him neither of us would have survived the birth."

Bella perched on the edge of Angela's bed and took her friend's hands in her own. "I shall do my best to make my father proud while little Charlotte sleeps. He will be honored. Let us get this over with so we might go back to a regular visit."

"Yes, let us make haste. This angel-monster might wake at any moment. I'll open the shutters so you have more light."

With windows open there was a chill in the air, and Angela tucked another small scrap of blanket around the babe. She lay a second protective covering over the quilted bedcovers and hitched her nightgown to her waist before settling on the bed with legs spread wide and her eyes trained on the thatched roof above.

"Have the fevers kept at bay?" Isabella asked as she rubbed her hands with lavender spirits. She kept her line of vision between her hands and Angela's face.

"Since your father retrieved the lingering afterbirth."

"Oh my! He hadn't said."

"'Twas good of him to keep it to himself. I was in such a state I scarce remember it. I pray we all might forget his forearm was once inside of me."

Isabella, felt the color drain from her face, but took a deep breath and peered between her friend's legs. She worked to keep her expression passive as she inspected the swollen, bruised tissue, freshly torn flesh, the springy hairs glistening with dark, clotted blood.

"I've brought liniment to keep the dark humors away," she whispered between large gulps of air.

"And tales of noble travellers?"

"Right. Of course." And despite the gruesome sight before her, a small smile tugged at the corners of Isabella's mouth as she dipped a clean cloth into the jar of Thieves. She'd known the pungent scent since she was the size of little Charlotte, but now it hearkened back to memories of heavy traveling cloaks dyed deep crimson and orange. She dabbed at her friend's wound. Angela hissed and jumped. Her thighs quivered.

"Tales, please!" came Angela's voice, an octave higher than before.

"So sorry, sweet Angela. Of course." Isabella paused to collect her thoughts. "The young lord and his father are travelling through the kingdom. 'Tis a journey of discovery for him, before he commits himself to the seminary. He has told me breathtaking tales of the Golden Sea and Sunset Mountain where men play in the rough surf with little regard for their lives. I hope to hear more of Cloud Forest and the Greenland Plains before he departs. He dresses like he is from a fairy story and uses Thieves, just like I am using now, as a balm against illness. He has countless queer ideas about horses and wives, and has a heart that would rather take to the road than a dark and damp monastery."

Once the blood was wiped clean, Isabella could better see the snakelike trail of broken skin where Angela's sex had split open. A thin trickle of blood wept from the gash.

"Do you use warm water on the wound?" Isabella asked.

"What? Right, you are peering at my sex. No, not as often today, without assistance."

"I shall use lavender as a pessary, with your permission, of course."

Angela's eyes went wide as she stared at the ceiling. She bit her lip. "Then tell me more of the lord."

Isabella took another clean cloth and saturated it with the lavender spirits, then wound it tightly into a finger-sized mass. She eased it past her friend's swollen lips. Angela clutched at the bedclothes.

"The young lord is quite tender-hearted and kind," Isabella offered with a quavering voice, as she positioned the cloth just inside her friend. "He listens to all of the whims I let fly from my lips, then tells them back to me and makes more sense than the original. He dreams of a heaven for horses, like a pure-hearted child, yet is certainly built like a man. But a man who has hardly taken to a shovel before this morning. You should have seen the damage an hour of labor wrought on his palms."

"What is this lord's name, Isabella? Is it the explorer and ship's captain, Jasper Cullen, who has landed at your home?"

Isabella's heart thumped and her skin tingled. "No, he is neither Emmett or Jasper Cullen. He is Edward Cullen, the youngest brother."

"Look how your eyes sparkle!"

Isabella glanced up from the misery of the birthbed to see her friend staring at her face instead of the ceiling. "And you care for him?" Angela asked.

"I care for… his opinion of me."

"Dearest, Isabella, when Ben first admired my embroidery, 'twas as if I'd never received a compliment on my needlework in all my life until that very moment. It was only months ago, not even a year. And I've lived a lifetime since."

"How quickly this has all come about," Isabella agreed, looking around the quaint cottage. Her eyes focused on the pink little girl in the basket. "Did you expect this all so soon?"

"All of what?" Angela asked. Her eyes followed Isabella's. "What else should I expect from the marriage bed? She is a blessing. Our love in the form of a little babe."

As if on cue, the babe fretted in her basket, and Angela quieted her with hushed words of devotion and a caress.

"Just months," Isabella murmured. "Months ago you were a maiden."

"'Tis true. Just months ago this home didn't yet stand. Charlotte wasn't even a whisper."

The babe's translucent eyelids fluttered and it beat its little fist and opened its mouth, letting out a plaintive wail. Angela swept the tiny thing up in her arms, unlaced her nightgown and bared swollen breast, crisscrossed with dark blue veins. The nipple was a bruised shade of red, cracked and weeping. The young mother winced when the babe's little mouth latched tight.

"My milk came in overnight, and now she cries for the tit whenever she wakes." Angela twirled a finger through the tiny ringlets on her daughter's head. "You greedy little glutton. What am I ever to do with… Ouch!"

Little Charlotte came loose from the nipple, and gobbled hungrily, looking to reattach herself. Angela cringed with the uneven suckle.

"I brought some comfrey salve to help your breasts heal," Isabella offered, rooting through her father's bag as much out of concern as to preserve Angela's last shred of propriety. "It's safe for your little one, and should help with the pain until your nipples toughen up."

"Tough nipples?" Angela giggled. "Some dreams aren't quite clear until you are wed. Until these tender bags of milk become tough, let us try your paste." She juggled the fretful babe in her arm and loosened the ties on her nightgown further so she might pull her other breast free. Her second nipple looked equally red and painful, and little drops of milk dripped from the tip. The babe wailed at the sight of two breasts, neither of which were in her mouth.

"Should I?" Bella asked, holding up the little tin, nodding at her friend's naked chest. Angela was married, legs spread, breasts bared, modesty lost, almost as vulnerable as the babe in her arms. She was terrifying in her naked candor. Bella was suddenly frightened to touch.

"I've only two hands, so it's either my breasts or the babe. Which would you prefer?" Angela asked with a chuckle.

It was no choice, really. Isabella went for the little babe. The soft wriggling bundle seemed to weigh less than a good loaf of bread, but smelled twice as sweet. Isabella concentrated on little Charlotte, instead of her friend who quickly went to work massaging salve onto her bruised skin.

"It may burn and itch as it heals," Isabella warned as the quaking little lass beat her fists and fussed, rooting for milk in her swaddling. Charlotte rolled her head fitfully, then catching sight of the swell of Bella's anatomy, opened wide and collided nose to nipple with her caretaker.

Angela chuckled, her eyes alight with love. "See how resourceful she is! Aren't you the smartest babe in these woods." The tiny girl blinked her dark eyes and she stopped fussing to listen to her mother. "You'll have to wait, little lass, for Bella has no milk for you just yet."

Isabella slipped the tip of her finger between the babe's puckered lips and the little thing pulled and sucked, her eyes screwed up tight.

"If I were not a Christian I would wager you'll have one of your own before next summer's solstice."

"There is no way, Angela," Isabella demurred.

"You certainly know… the way," Angela tittered. "You've just peered beneath my skirts and you were raised on a farm."

Isabella felt her cheeks pinking. "I am not wed, nor am I courting."

"Not officially."

"Nor unofficially," Isabella quickly countered.

"Isabella Swan, Jacob Black has thrown himself at you for as long as we've known one another, yet you have never said more than three words about him in my presence. Today your thoughts about this visiting nobleman rush past your lips like the river rushes past your father's land."

"He is not a cobbler's son, Angela. He is a nobleman bound for the clergy. He will be gone on the morrow."

"And if he strayed from his destiny and lingered in these woods?"

"His father would forbid it."

"Yet you would hear no quarrel from the young lord himself?"

Isabella gazed into the dark little eyes of the babe in her arms. She dreamed of dark, endless nights where she might trade her philosophy for tales of travel with an emerald-eyed young man. She dreamed of the two running through meadows and collapsing on their backs in exhaustion as falling stars streaked through the heavens. She dreamed of holding his hand once more. She dreamed of traveling to Sunset Mountain and fighting the tide. She dreamed of making mathematical sense of the movement of the stars, completing her mother's work. She dreamed of everything life might hold, and it was more than she could have dreamed less than a week ago.

"It is not my decision, Angela." Had her life been decided before she knew just quite how to use it?

"And who is this lord's counsel?"

"It should be his father, yet I believe he may have held his mare in higher esteem. And of course, there is his god." Edward said he saw his god in her. She shivered and sighed.

"If only we knew his god's thoughts," Angela mused.

"Of course!"

"You know his god, then?" Angela chuckled.

"Not personally. But we know someone who does. Let me hand this little babe back and finish up below your skirts, for I should be off. I've another stop to make before I head back to my homestead."

"I see so much of Ben in her," Angela remarked, taking her daughter into her arms.

"He said the same of you."

"He is a liar," she chuckled. "This little one is Ben through and through. But do not fret, little Charlotte. He is the best liar in the whole kingdom."

"Has someone been lying to our wee one?" Ben Fallowell asked as he strode into their home and crossed the little cottage in three long strides. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the small space. "Who is the lying kerr? I shall find him and wring his neck."

Angela's face brightened as if stars had descended to light her eyes, and she brought her legs together and rested an arm across her chest.

"Charlotte is in no danger, dearest. I was just informing her about the tendencies of her dear Father."

"I would never tell tales to this little lass." Ben murmured as he knelt to kiss first Angela, then Charlotte's forehead.

"Isabella is playing at healer while her father helps on her homestead. She's helped with the pain brought by the little one's suckle."

"I'm in your debt, Bella. How is my wife?"

"She is healing nicely, Ben. The tide has turned since you were at my home."

"I thank heaven and your father. I am blessed. You have blessed me my little lass." Ben cooed and made faces at his little girl, who did in fact bear a striking resemblance to her father. Isabella made haste to inconspicuously remove the pessary and help right Angela's clothing.

"Would you stay here for a meal, Isabella?" Ben asked.

"And tell more tales of the nobleman who brings such color to your cheeks?" Angela added.

Charlotte fussed in the new mother's arms. Angela clucked and fondled her, and Ben slid onto the mattress besides them. Again he kissed one forehead, then the other, and despite the door Ben had left ajar, the air seemed far too close for Isabella, the cottage too small. Ben gazed down at his daughter, or Angela's bared breast (it was difficult to tell), and played with the little babe's foot.

"I'm sorry, but I should make haste."

"For you have to speak to the relative of a god. Or to a young nobleman?"

Isabella hid her face as she packed her father's bag.

"My parents will be visiting your homestead on their way from the workshop today," Ben added. "We owe your father more than we have to give. I should have gone myself, but…" Ben's voice trailed off as he gazed at his family.

"I understand," Isabella murmured. "Now that Ben is back, stay put in your bed, Angela. Warm water to the wound before you close your eyes in sleep. Either myself or my father will be by on the morrow."

Angela grasped Isabella's hand and smiled and another errant tear slipped down her cheek. Little Charlotte waved her fist.

The idea of tomorrow left Isabella's insides quaking. After a life where one day bled into the next, where season followed predictable season, Edward Cullen appeared at her gate. Each evening since she was left to wonder what the next day would offer. Tomorrow held possibilities she could scarce imagine.

xXxXx

 **Thanks to all who have taken the time to read. I'm on summer break from my teaching gig. With two "free" days/week I'm hoping you won't have to wait another 9 months for a chapter. Best, BDC**


	10. Chapter 10

**~ Many thanks to my indefatigable beta, SueBee0619, who betas through the plague, and to my chearleader & pre-reader, Robsmyyummy Cabanaboy. I've dreamed about this chapter for a really long time & it was such a pleasure to bring to life. Enjoy! ~**

 **xXxXx**

Chapter 10

It was done. Slanting rays of light shone across a field of golden weeds and a large patch of fresh earth, but every time Edward closed his eyes he saw it all again: Rosalie dragged and dumped into a freshly dug grave, tumbling like a large sack of rocks, then hitting the ground with an earth-rattling thump. Edward swallowed in an effort to choke back the tears, instead coating his throat with dust and grit. He wiped his eyes and blinked into the setting sun. She was gone. His father hadn't taken to his philosophy about man's nature, Edward hadn't settled into his life's purpose, and now they would return to Center City, leaving Rosalie behind, buried in the Swan's fallow field.

Men on either side of him beat the ground with their shovels, tamping down the soil. Others collected their gear. They spoke of crops and the coming winter, comparing who was best prepared to endure the dark, cold months ahead. Despite their poverty, each was better equipped than he. Edward wasn't certain how he might persevere.

Jacob Black laughed from across the grave, and Edward glanced up to see him clapping Master Swan on the back. They smiled at one another, glad a day's hard labor was now in the past.

"Will you stay until she is back?" Master Swan asked Jacob.

"When do you expect her?"

Edward gathered his shovel and the bag of jerky and fruit Isabella had left with him. He gripped tightly, purposefully causing a spasm of white hot pain. It felt appropriate for it matched the seering ache in his chest. With a glance at his hands, Edward noticed his bandages were blood-stained and shredded. Yet with Master Swan and Jacob Black deep in conversation, Edward didn't have the heart to ask for the healer's aid. While every muscle in his body was screaming in agony, Mister Black appeared invigorated by the day's work.

"Excuse me, my lord." A stout man with a bushy brown beard addressed Edward with a nervous nod of his head. "I should be heading home. I have an hour's ride and a meal will be waiting."

"Thank you for your day's labor, good sir," Edward replied. He stood tall, hoping to reflect the nobility of his birth instead of the depths of his despair.

"I appreciate the thanks, my lord. I do. But, I, uh, was expecting something of more consequence for the work done here."

"Of course, sir. It is my father you seek. The elder Lord Cullen carries the purse and distributes the pay." Edward gazed across the field toward the Swan's homestead, squinting against the setting sun, hoping to spot evidence of his father's whereabouts. Indeed, he saw the silhouette of a man in the distance, walking in the direction of the fresh grave and gathered laborers.

"I believe that might be him, sir," Edward offered with a nod of his head.

"He's not your father, my lord. He's father to us all. That's Friar Randolph, unless your father's his twin."

On second glance Edward managed to discern the approaching gentleman's robes. He was trailed by a small cadre of women and children. Little girls skipped with ringlets bouncing, boys charged at and dodged one another, playing as they ran. The women hung together, heads bent, wiping their hands on their skirts. In the distance he spotted the silhouette of his own father speaking to one of the women. She was a slight, graceful figure who used her hands as she spoke, her head upturned, unafraid to look him in the face. Isabella Swan. It could be no other.

"Friar Randolph!" Master Swan exclaimed as the minster approached he grave. "What brings you to my homestead this evening?"

"I've heard of the passing of a fine friend."

"Surely it's not Widow Smythe? She was mending when I left her bedside yesterday."

"No. God willing, the widow is still with us. I understand the departed was named Rosalie?" The friar searched the faces of the gathered men as he spoke, his gaze settling on the young Lord Cullen.

Edward stepped forward uncertainly, his head bowed. "Father."

"Isabella tells me you are to enter the clergy, my son."

"I'm on leave from seminary."

"She tells me you lost a dear friend."

Edward's face colored. His eyes sparkled. He was keenly aware of the gathered crowd. There was Master Swan and Isabella, Lord Cullen, Alice Brandon and her step-mother flanked by innumerable little ones, the elder Fallowell's - grandparents to the new babe who'd come to give their thanks - and there were the wives and sisters of the many men who had come to help dig the horse's grave.

"I believe there has been some miscommunication. She was a beast. She fell prey to the dark humors on our journey."

Friar Randolph grasped the young lord's arm. "No, young man. Isabella was quite clear when she came to me this afternoon. I understand Rosalie was precious. She was a friend to you, and her passing has brought with it much pain. I'm here as a courtesy, as a fellow man of the cloth. After a burial it's customary to follow with a service to bless the departed. Would you object?"

Edward blinked back the tears. "I would be ever so grateful, Father," he murmured, yet he didn't look on the friar as he spoke. He had eyes only for Isabella Swan.

xXxXx

The villagers of Bryn Athyn were a tolerant lot, especially when foreign nobility, unexpected paydays, and an impromptu feast were incorporated into something as unusual as the funeral of a chestnut mare. Friar Randolph gave a short yet earnest speech on the value of friendship and hard work, something he'd heard of in reference to Rosalie. He spoke of the necessity to treat all creatures with kindness, and how there would be recompense for those actions in the next life.

After a psalm and a prayer, the villagers were invited back to the Swan's homestead where Alice and the other women of Bryn Athyn had an autumn harvest feast waiting for their hard-working men. The laborers relaxed with flagons of mead and roasted meat, while children jumped into piles of leaves and danced and sang in the garden. Isabella talked with friends and neighbors and was finally able to sit down to eat with Alice and Jacob once everyone had been attended to. The three fell into conversation, spent from hard work and glad of easy company. Isabella was ever alert, but Edward had retired to the river with the friar following the funeral. As guests left one by one, Isabella hung about the yard as long as she could tarry before she relented and returned to the cottage to help her father set the household in order.

"Our guests are likely to leave on the morrow," Charles mentioned as he scraped table scraps into a bucket for the pigs. "Thank you for all you've done for them, daughter."

Isabella's cheeks warmed and she busied herself wiping the countertop.

"We can get back to our quieter way of life," Charles continued. "With the Cullens gone, I'll once again have use of my infirmary and apothecary. We can work together with our patients here in our home. I will be on hand more to help keep house." Charles grasped his daughter's hands and sought her eyes. "We can get back to our stories each night before bed."

"Yes, Father," Isabella murmured, tugging her hands away to gather the dishes from the table.

"What troubles you, my child?"

"One week ago I would have been satisfied with our homestead, but tonight your words bring with them sadness and longing. I don't know what I am anymore," she replied as she gathered bowls, utensils, and table linens.

Charles grasped her by the shoulders and forced her to face him. "You are my bright, shining star, Isabella Swan."

The maiden took a deep breath, then looked her father in the eyes. "What if I could make my stories real?"

"You would like to write them down?" The healer smiled at his daughter. After payment from their noble boarders they would have gold enough to purchase paper and ink to write down Isabella's fanciful tales about the stars.

"I would like to prove their truth," the girl tried to explain.

Charles chuckled and Isabella pulled herself from his grasp, making her way to the water basin. The healer followed his daughter, but she studiously avoided his gaze. "I know these days have been difficult. I know it wasn't your choice to visit the Missus Fallowell, but I believed you were equal to the task."

"Will you always love me?" Isabella asked, as if to the plates in front of her.

"How could you question my love?"

"Because I hardly know what is hiding inside of me. I don't know if I love what is within myself, so how can I be certain you will love me too?"

"No matter what comes and goes in your life, Isabella, the one thing that should always stay unspoiled is your self regard."

"Why did you laugh at my dreams?"

"You seek to prove fairy stories?"

Isabella turned to her father. He had always been the most handsome man in her world. As a child she imagined he could have moved mountains and healed everyone in the kingdom. Tonight he looked tired, his face etched with lines, his shoulders slightly stooped. Tonight he failed to see what Edward Cullen had seen in her. She sighed. "I wish to travel the skies in my mind, Father. I would like to take up Mother's work. I know her writings as if they were my own. As a maiden of these woods I have no birthright, but I have my mother. This is a purpose uniquely mine own."

Charles' chest rose and fell. He grasped the countertop as if a weight had fallen on his shoulders. "I see."

"I would need to leave these woods to take up my studies. I could not be happy otherwise. Things must change, musn't they?" she asked.

Charles smiled at his daughter. "When we stop growing, whether in body, in mind, or in our possibilities, we start growing old. You are too young to stagnate."

"It doesn't mean I love you any less."

"And it means I've loved you enough." He kissed her forehead. "Is it our guests who have brought about this simmering interest in travel and change?" he asked.

"Perhaps… yes."

"It appears we needed them as much as they needed our aid. It has been much work these past days, but perhaps it has been worth it all. You will need a sponsor if you are to study thus."

"I thought I might ask the elder Lord Cullen. His word is bond in this kingdom."

"Yes, I dare say his signature would carry some weight."

"I plan to ask him on the morrow before he sets off."

Charles' eyes glistened as he smiled down on his daughter. "Is this truly what you wish?"

"I'd never thought to make something of myself outside this village, but now I know I haven't much time. I know what my life will hold if I remain."

"It would be a good life, child."

"But I prefer to choose a life for myself, as much as I am able."

Charles cradled his daughter's head in his hand. "Your mother's light shines within you. Let us sleep on this possibility and meet in the morning before we see our guests off to the Capitol. Rest, my daughter, and dream of the possibilities you seek."

xXxXx

Isabella could not rest though. Indeed she was entirely restless. Minutes later in her chamber she slowly undressed, layer by layer - first smock, then dress, then shift, then stockings one by one. She examined her figure from one angle, then another, and then pulled on her nightgown and tied it at either shoulder. She knew where she would find the boy, but she hadn't realized she was seeking him out until she crept down the hall and out the back door with her father's traveling medicine satchel slung over her shoulder. She easily spotted the flickering lamplight from within the barn, and with several swift steps, she found him on the floor of Rosalie's empty stall.

Edward sat with his knees pulled to his chin, his eyes hidden. Although she'd run headlong to the barn, she hesitated at the entrance, recalling the first evening she's spotted him thus. His figure still kindled pinpricks of fire over the surface of her skin, her heart still beat against her chest like a drum, her breath felt strangled in her throat. Now though, now she knew the boy. Now she understood he had a gentle heart matching his gentle hands and that he was good through and through.

"My Lord," she whispered, taking a tentative step inside the barn, wondering if he'd finally fallen into merciful sleep.

"Maiden!" Edward exclaimed, hastening to his feet. His pale face was stained with tears, in strange counterpoint to the glimmer of hope in his eyes.

"Edward." Isabella breathed his name more than spoke it. It was a sigh. It was a sadness.

"Isabella."

"Edward, I am going to -"

"You brought me Friar Randolph," the lad interrupted, taking a step in her direction.

Isabella leaned against the slats of the stall opposite. "Yes, I did it both for you and for Rosalie. She deserved as much. Who am I to be the arbiter of souls when I can scarce name my own feelings?"

"I am forever grateful." Edward took another step, lingering at the entrance of his slave's former stall. He bit his bottom lip and his eyes flitted over her figure. The other horses shifted in their paddocks. Wind rushed through the trees on the ridge, and leaves scuttled near the entrance to the barn.

"And I am so glad you availed yourself of his visit. Your ideas do not track with his, but as a man in the service of your god I thought his counsel could be a comfort. I am thankful you landed here on my homestead, Edward. You've opened my mind to possibilities I never would have imagined."

"The possibilities burned within you like the light inside this lantern. Anyone might have seen them."

Isabella's cheeks went warm, but she remembered to look the boy in the eyes instead of hiding her face. He appreciated her face. She felt her cheeks go hot. "Nevertheless, I'm glad you came."

"As am I. Isabella, I have something to confess, something weighing on my soul."

"Oh dear! Friar Randolph has left this homestead, there is no one here to whom you might confess."

Edward slipped outside the stall, leaning against its walls, just across the passage from Isabella. Four feet of straw-lined dirt, chilly autumn air, and a scrap or two of linen was all that stood between them. "I've unburdened my heart to the good friar, but his is not the absolution I seek. You see Maiden, I was glad for Rosalie's lameness after our first discussion here days ago. Then, days later, I ignored signs she might be more ill than we imagined in order to spend the day with you." Edward bowed his head and glanced at his hands knotted in front of him.

Isabella took a step towards the lad. "It was not my intention to distract you from your steed."

Edward shook his head. "I am not explaining myself quite right." When he tipped his head to gaze at her, his eyes burned like summer sun turned green. "Isabella, I am admitting to the feeling you asked about earlier today. There has been one on my travels who has made me feel. She is standing in front of me and she is more beautiful than any other I have ever met, her mind and her heart." Edward swallowed. "And her body."

"Oh." The young woman's skin burned and she glanced down to see if the lantern might have set her on fire. Yet it still flickered in its casing, sending shadows dancing against the walls of the barn.

"I have made vows to my god, to my seminary, and to my family. More immediately, I've made vows to your father."

Isabella startled. "My father, sir?"

"I swore to him I wouldn't touch you. I vow to you now that I have no intention to fall prey to man's baser instincts, no matter my body and its indelible will of its own."

Isabella's cheeks colored. "Mine as well," she whispered.

"Excuse me?"

"I used my mind and my imagination like you suggested." Isabella glanced at her toes, her cheeks aflame.

"I can't fathom what you mean."

Isabella wasn't of a mind to explain. Instead she stooped down to fetch the discarded remains of Rosalie's blanket in the corner of the stall. "You haven't yet told me her story," she remarked, folding the soiled wool.

Edward sighed. "It would be appropriate to remember Rosalie this evening."

"In this place," Isabella agreed as she took a seat and gathered her legs underneath her. "She was a pretty mare."

"She wasn't when Father presented her to me," Edward began. He sat so close that straw rustled against her bare legs and his breath was warm on her face. Isabella's heart hammered. Edward made certain their knees did not touch. He couldn't help but smile as he looked into the maiden's big brown eyes.

"Rosalie had been the property of a criminal named Royce. After he was beheaded, the King's men plundered his property and found Rosalie, one of many malnourished, unmanageable horses set to be rendered. However, Father had other ideas.

"She was gifted to me on the twelfth anniversary of my christening. I'd never stopped petitioning him to continue my mother's work: to travel outside the city walls bringing alms to those in need. With my gift, my father gave me his word. Not only could I leave Center City, but he would ride out with me if I could rehabilitate the beast. He meant to teach me for once and for all that nothing, neither horse nor human could be redeemed."

"T'was no gift!" Isabella countered, rising to her knees in anger.

Edward's smile was sad, and despite his promise, he clasped Isabella's delicate hands in his bandaged ones. "It was the first gift he'd given me since my mother's passing, and a precious one. It kept me connected to my mother and her ideals, even as it opened up the fresh wound of her passing. I took Father's gift to heart and set out to break Rosalie with all the wild vigor a boy could muster."

"And you were successful?" Isabella asked, clutching at Edward's hands.

Edward shook his head. "I came away from the task with bruises and broken bones. When a soul has been beaten, you cannot win them over with fear and intimidation, certainly not in the form of a timid boy of twelve."

Isabella inched closer to the boy, her bare knees scraping over dry hay. Her hands burned, her heart beat as if it would burst from her chest. "But you are here, borne on Rosalie's back, no less."

"After a year I acquiesced. I gave up my quest to leave Center City, but I would not give up on the horse's life. Perhaps Rosalie could not be rehabilitated, but I would not send her to her death. While my father believed I was in the stables working with the animal, we simply learned to share space. I would sit in her stall to study. I would gift her seckel pears in the fall and delicate greens from the kitchen garden in the spring. I learned she luxuriated in having her neck groomed, but became feisty when I handled her mane."

"As I long suspected, she was no slave, but your friend," Isabella remarked.

"What is a friend kept trapped behind a wall?"

"I might ask the same of your father."

Edward bit his lip. Isabella bit hers in reply. The two youngsters sat in a stall on their knees, holding hands like they were first to discover the excitement of twined fingers and joined palms.

"We are so different, yet so much alike. We were meant for different worlds, you and I. How did you come to be here?" Isabella asked.

"It was Emmett on his last visit to the Capitol. He found me in the stable and had his fun with me, asking whether I was studying to be friar or a stable hand."

"I shall pickle him to death for teasing you!" Isabella laughed, but Edward's eyes narrowed and his body stiffened were he sat. "I forgot. I shall not pickle with Emmett. Sorry, sir."

Edward shook his head to rid himself of the sourness of jealousy. "I told my brother of my desire to leave the city, of my predicament regarding transport. It was Emmett who saw Rosalie transformed. He mounted her bareback, teasing me for not doing the same. It took too many years for me to learn all beasts, when treated with kindness, will bend to your will out of the goodness of their heart. And if Rosalie had a heart, she must also possess a soul.

"My father is a man of his word. He was not happy to accompany me on my travels, nor was he happy with my newfound philosophy, barely tolerant of my message of the redemptive power of love, and the import of livestock."

Isabella clutched the boy's hands. "I'm sorry to say he is poorer for it. You have one of the kindest hearts I've yet to come across in my sixteen years."

"I made your acquaintance less than one week ago, but your praise stirs feelings within me I cannot name. It gives me hope I might overcome my predetermined destiny."

"Edward, you have done the same for me. I -"

"Have I?" the boy asked with a sparkle of hope in his eye.

Isabella felt her cheeks go warm from a flame ignited below her waist and between her thighs. She ducked her head and her breath came hard.

Edward squeezed her hands. "Has there been one lad in Bryn Athyn who has made you feel?" Edward asked. "Someone you've spotted from your window? Someone passing in the lane?"

"Someone spotted in a barn late at night?" she murmured.

Edward pressed his thumbs over the tops of Isabella's hands.

"Could we imagine this evening?" the maiden asked. "There is much afoot in this world. My father and yours, your departure, my future. I have found such solace in our imaginings. Could we share this space tonight and delight in the world we might make for an instant?"

Edward beamed. "Where horses might roam free?"

"My hair is already untied." Isabella shook her head and watched as the color rose in Edward's cheeks.

"It is… lovely," the boy murmured, pulling her hands towards him.

"How are your hands, my lord?"

"I do not care a wit," the young nobleman admitted.

"Might I re-bandage them? I've brought salve and new linen from the cottage."

"But-"

Isabella shook her head vehemently, silencing Edward with either her insistence or the shimmer of her loose curls. "In our world I would gladly tend to your wounds. Father watched me bandage you this morning. He cannot quarrel with medicine. He would expect nothing less from his child."

Edward released Isabella's hands, the spell momentarily shattered. "I promised your father I would not take advantage of you."

"As if I am here for the taking! Did either of you consider what I might give?" she asked.

Edward could not fathom how to answer the maiden's question.

"Now, if you fill this bucket with water from the well, I'll set up a makeshift infirmary and let our imaginations fly."

xXxXx

Seated across from one another in Rosalie's empty stall, a lantern and a bucket between them as if they were witches about to cast a spell, Isabella and Edward let the world outside the barn fall away. They could imagine nothing beyond the charged air of the small space, so close, threaded with golden light. Leaves danced against the roof of the barn, striking an uneven patter masking the battering of hearts against chests and struggling breath held within lungs.

Edward's outstretched hands trembled slightly as he watched the rise and fall of Isabella's chest. The hem of her nightdress fell against his knee - infinitely soft like a butterfly's wing, yet able to strike sparks like a flint against stone. Isabella gently untied the dirty, blood-stained linens, revealing broken and tender skin bit by painful bit. The gradual exposure of the lad's wrists and palms was strangely intimate and she gasped when her fingertips brushed the tops of his hands. She ached to grasp. To clutch. Once more. Twice. The night long.

Instead, Isabella guided Edward's hands underneath the cool water, gently, yet thoroughly rubbing away the dried blood. Once clean she patted them dry with a cloth. Water splashed, drops fell and sizzled against skin like tallow in a hot pan.

Isabella paused. She breathed. She eyed the healing salve on the floor between them.

"We were imagining?" she asked.

"T'is beyond the power of my brain to take me from this barn."

"Let us try it, please?"

The boy closed his eyes and bit his bottom lip. "Then I cannot look your way, for there's nowhere I'd rather be."

Isabella grinned as she picked up the tin of healing balm. "You underestimate the power of your mind, my lord. There are better worlds still. In our imagined world it has been a physically taxing day for us both since we've hefted the weight of our horses' burdens. I imagine we might recount our day to one another while I bandage your hands."

Isabella watched the rise and fall of Edward's adam's apple as she gently took one of his hands in her own.

"I would have missed your company, Maiden," he murmured. "Your touch."

The girl dabbed her fingers in the lineament then tenderly pressed against his flesh. Edward hissed in response.

"I would have thought of you while I was away," she whispered.

"How is the Missus Fallowell?"

In Isabella's mind's eye she saw all over again the tenderness with which Ben regarded Angela when he came home from a long day's labor. She remembered the familiarity with which he climbed into their shared bed, how he openly stared at her bared breast. He'd adored Angela so completely that Isabella had wanted to run.

"She is healing," Isabella barely managed to murmur. "How was your time spent on this farm?"

Edward thought back to his day spent alone in the company of the villagers as one broad-shouldered young man in particular effortlessly swung a shovel and laughed with Master Swan. "I'm afraid I momentarily fell out of my God's grace. Yet this evening I was reminded how He colors the world in all shades, so we better appreciate its beauty."

Edward opened his eyes and peered across the small space at Isabella, admiring her pink cheeks and the golden flecks of lamplight flickering in her eyes. Her hands froze. Her chest rose and fell. Her nightgown shifted around her slender frame.

"Now it is your turn to tell me more of our world," she whispered.

Edward ached to touch more than her hands as he freed his mind to dream. For a moment he felt as if he were gasping for air, but he knew what he wished in their invented world. He closed his eyes and took a breath. "At night, after the little ones are asleep, you would find me reading, and you would climb into our bed."

Isabella's heart stuttered. Edward's fingertips curled almost imperceptibly. She leaned toward the lad.

"Our bed?"

Edward opened his eyes and she was so close. He smiled. She shivered. "If we are man and wife we would have a bed. I would make sure of it."

Isabella's head swam. "We would be married?"

"With a troop of little ones who would all have your curls."

"And your eyes?"

Edward beamed. Isabella took a fresh strip of linen and began wrapping the lad's hand. She pressed her thighs together. Her skin prickled like the air before summertime thunder. She'd never felt tempted to bring her lips to anyone else's before, but it suddenly felt as if magnetite stones had been placed in each of their mouths. She didn't trust herself and scooted backwards, leaving linen hanging, breaking their handheld embrace.

"We should not touch," she reminded the boy. "But we might dream."

"It would not be the first time," the lad admitted, raking his eyes over her.

Isabella wrapped her arms around herself and shivered again despite the feeling she was on fire from the inside out. "Would you close your eyes?" she implored.

Edward did as she had bidden and Isabella traced her fingertips from her wrists to her elbows and back, leaving a trail of fire in their wake. "Where did we leave off?" she asked. She brushed a fingertip over her lips and shuddered. "At night?"

"In bed."

"I am your wife?"

Edward's answer came in the form of a ragged breath. Isabella gently took up the piece of unsecured linen hanging from Edward's bandaged hand.

"You could heal anything," he murmured. "In this world, in our world. You are a wonder."

Tucking the fabric securely, the maiden brought the lad's hand to her lips. "You are kind," she whispered, brushing his fingertips as she spoke. She let go of his hand, and Edward cradled it against his chest. Isabella closed her eyes and trailed her hand from her lips, over her chin, then along her collarbone to her shoulder, sweeping her nightgown out of the way. In her mind she changed Ben for Edward, who gazed down at her lovingly as she bared her breast.

"You've taught me much," she murmured.

"Are you thinking about our world?" the boy asked breathlessly.

Isabella felt her way over linen, toward her aching breast, toward the spot that held the fire. She heard Edward gasp, or she imagined it, for her mind was taken with images of the boy; the way he looked at her in the lamplight, the way his breathing would quicken when standing close, the contours of his bare chest, the feel of his hands against hers, his fingertips ghosting against her lips. She dreamed of their newly imagined world, of Edward waiting for her in their shared bed. So, she let the feeling build, steadily stoking the fire, her breath coming quicker. She brushed, pressed, pulled, small movements and flutters with stunning impact on her senses.

"Maiden," came his strangled gasp, causing lightning to fire through Isabella's limbs.

"Please," she murmured, and there was a click from the taper as the lantern light dimmed. A rustle of fabric and straw and Isabella blinked open her eyes. The boy was on his knees in the darkness, one hand on the wall behind him, the other… she gasped.

His hand moved, as did hers, and with each motion shared in tandem a beautiful pain blossomed inside. She sank to her heels and held the boy's gaze and ached to really touch where she could bring relief. With a quick tug to either tie the nightdress slipped from her shoulders and the boy closed his eyes. She found the spot, now damp, warm and full, and his witness made blinding the all consuming ache. She watched and she felt and her insides burst into brightness, and she fell against the wall gasping as his seed fell onto his hands and into his lap.

Time slowed. Limbs loosened. Isabella drew her knees to her chin. "You taught me that," she whispered.

"Like hell," came his reply, came his grin. He couldn't look her in the eye.

"Hell, Sir? Another strike against the seminary."

"The seminary," he laughed. "The seminary!"

She peered around her kneecaps, trying to discern more of his lap in the darkness.

"What was that?" he asked.

"You were right. The ache can subside, but then it returns unrelenting. Now I know the route to the briefest escape, which is a relief because I may have been driven mad otherwise."

"This is as close to insanity as I've come," he admitted, wiping his hands on the straw-covered floor of the barn.

"You walked into my homestead with talk of horse's souls and friars' wives. The soil was already tilled for the seed." Bella pulled her nightgown to her chest and sat up on her knees. "Did you just?" she asked, nodding towards the boy's lap.

He nodded his head and avoided her eyes.

"If you find a wife you must warn her," she continued.

"What?"

"T'was much larger than I'd imagined. I mean, I had never really imagined, but assumed. I've seen men in my father's care, but not…"

Her voice trailed off. Her face hotter than a summer's day.

"I couldn't have imagined what I just witnessed," he rasped, finally finding the strength to look the young woman in the face.

"But you said you had," she countered.

"But you are more wondrous still."

Isabella's body stirred, she felt the heels of her feet firm against her sex, the scratch of her nightgown held over her breasts. Edward bit his bottom lip and his breathing came quicker. Bits of fiery sparkle seemed born on the air. "Could I come closer?" she asked.

Edward nodded and she practically sprang across the stall, settling next to him. The boy tried to gaze at her face, but his eyes were drawn to the spot where she held her shift over her breasts.

"Would you like to see again?" she asked.

"What of your honor?" the boy asked.

"Do you plan on speaking of me in disparaging terms? Keep my confidence and my honor will remain intact. What did you promise my father?"

"I would not touch you."

"Do not touch," she instructed as she let the garment fall into her lap.

"But you touched them?" he asked.

Isabella exhaled. "It is exquisite," she replied, peering into his lap. "It grows!"

Edward tried to cover himself, but Isabella shook her head. "We've been open with one another from the start. Let us still," and she slipped a hand between her thighs.

xXxXx

Edward and Isabella gazed at one another underneath the light of the stars filtering through wooden slats. Isabella lay just close enough that Edward could reach a glossy strand of hair. He twirled it round a finger and sighed.

"What would your occupation be in our invented world?" Isabella asked as she tucked her hands underneath her cheek. She watched the rise and fall of the boy's chest, then followed long lines lower.

"I would not be a priest," came his quiet reply.

"You would not be a priest."

"I would not."

"And what of me?" Isabella asked. "What would I be in our world?"

"You would be my guiding light, and mother to our children," he replied without hesitation as he twirled the lock of her hair and gazed into her eyes. "I would call you Bella."

Isabella's heart stuttered. "But what of the heavens?"

"They would bless our union."

Isabella blinked back tears. Her body burned. Her heart felt as if it had swelled so large it had begun to tear. She ducked her head.

"Have I said too much?" the boy asked.

Isabella shook her head wondering if she had the right to hope for more from a beautiful dream.

"I feel near certain we could imagine this world into being, Isabella. You and I together could make anything happen. Ours would be a land where our community comes together over the death of a beloved workhorse. Who understands when someone needs wise counsel, and brings a friar."

Isabella wiped an errant tear from her eye. Had she the right to hope for more from this world as well?

The light from the stars seemed to glow brighter as they gazed at one another, then brighter still. Softly padding feet crunched over dried leaves.

"Edward!" Lord Cullen hissed and the village and the life they had crafted shattered all around them. Two naked teenagers found themselves on a barnyard floor in Bryn Athyn.

"Edward!" the boy's father hissed again. Lamplight grew brighter and footsteps came closer.

The couple scrambled, Isabella casting about for her discarded nightgown, Edward tugging up his undergarments and struggling into his breeches.

Carlisle's footsteps approached the door of the barn and Edward had no time to find his undershirt. He ran and intercepted his father. "Father, I am here," the boy panted, rumpled, topless and covered in straw.

Carlisle appraised the boy from head to toe. "What in the world has come over you?" he asked.

"I was mourning Rosalie."

"Half dressed yet again? There are no more wounds to dress, no reason to destroy any more clothing."

"I haven't, father," Edward said, planting himself firmly in the doorway.

Carlisle's eye twinkled. "Ah ha, yes. Well, it is done, then, isn't it?"

"Excuse me?"

"It took five days, a fortune paid to a farmer, but I knew it when I saw the two of you in the lane."

"No! You are mistaken."

"Then you wouldn't mind if I go and mourn alongside you in this empty barn?" Carlisle asked, making as if he would brush past Edward. But the boy moved to block his father's entry.

"You found your adventure, my boy. We made a man of you. Good work bedding the sweet little thing."

"No!"

"No, I suppose you barned her. 'Tis less comfortable, but you wouldn't be the first to choose a roll in the hay."

"I love her."

"Son, you are nobility. You are a future priest. She is no one. She is witty and smart, and a treat for the eyes, so I promise you I will not hold this against her. Some might find it criminal to pay the father for the opportunity to bed the daughter. Some might judge quite harshly, but I assure you it won't come to that. If there is a babe we will provide."

Carlisle Cullen had expectations for each of his sons. From birth he'd expected Emmett, his big-boned, good-natured son to lead armies of soldiers into battle. He'd expected his adventurous second son, Jasper, to travel to foreign lands, plundering for the king. He had no doubts his queer, quiet, soft-hearted youngest son, Edward, would become a man of the cloth. One thing he'd never expected from Edward, though, was to be punched square in the face by him in the middle of the night in the tiny village of Bryn Athyn.


	11. Chapter 11

**My beta is SueBee0619. My pre-reader is Robsmyyummy Cabanaboy. They're an amazing and supportive team & I'm so glad to have had them on this journey. Now, without further ado:**

 **Chapter 11**

"Bella!" Edward hissed, rushing into the barn, cradling his right hand. "Bella!"

She emerged from the stall wrinkled and covered in hay. "Are you hurt?"

"Quick, while he is laid low. Get to your chamber. I will take care of the rest. I will not allow him to disabuse your name."

"Your hand, my lord!" Isabella took it gently in hers, and she scouted the barn for the lost medicine satchel. Indeed, Edward's hand appeared unnaturally large, his fingers strangely colored.

"There is no time for medicine, Bella. There is no telling when he'll wake." Edward led her to the doorway.

"Oh my!" the girl exclaimed, finding Carlisle Cullen in a heap at the entrance to the barn.

"To your chamber, maiden. Please. I'll come find you on the morrow."

"I should tend to him if he is hurt."

Edward grasped the young woman by the shoulders, he pled with his eyes. "He cannot wake and find you here. This is between myself and my father. We have much to discuss and I cannot have you caught in our crosshairs. Go to sleep. Say you'll dream of me?"

"As if I might slumber, my lord."

"Call me by my name?"

"Good night, Edward." Isabella touched the tip of her fingers to the boy's lips.

Carlisle Cullen stirred at their feet.

"Run!" Edward hissed, and the girl dashed toward her cottage, leaving father and son alone and infirm in the moonlight.

Moments later she fell onto her sleeping pallet, fibers and feathers from the ticking scratching at her skin like the hay had just moments earlier. Like the heat had. She ached, a wide open feeling like the rush of the wind in a summer storm. She knew there was no going back to former times. Another night and she would not keep her hands to herself. No matter Edward's vows to her father, no matter his destiny, another night and his mouth would attempt indecent things. They had confessed as much.

 _"I would like to press my lips against yours," she'd admitted, sated and naked on the floor of the barn._

 _"I would like to circle my arms around your waist," the boy murmured._

 _"I would like to feel your body against mine." She pressed herself against the ground beneath her, which was as hard as she imagined him to be, but cold and unyielding in comparison._

 _"I would like to feel your flesh beneath my fingertips." Edward drew designs in the hay as his eyes scanned the length of the young woman. His loins stirred._

 _"I would like to feel your manhood," she admitted, her fingers stretching in his direction._

 _"I would like to take your breast between my lips and suckle like a babe."_

 _"You would?"_

 _The boy's face went redder than the beets they had laid up in the cellar. Isabella's insides quaked. "I would like for you to try such a thing," she admitted. Her nipples tingled and she rolled onto her back and gazed at the stars through the uneven slats of the barn roof._

 _"How do they feel?" he asked as he gazed at her chest._

 _Her hands fluttered and felt. "Soft yet firm at once. Quite bouncy near the tip." She pressed fingers against her hardening nipples._

 _"They change."_

 _"Like little pebbles," Isabella explained, pinching, then pressing her thighs together. "How does it feel between your legs?" she asked, stealing a glance._

 _"Like the ache and the burn in my palms were dually transformed into something bigger, something so intensely good I cannot explain."_

 _Isabella giggled. "Something bigger."_

 _"I would like you to feel it," the boy admitted._

Another night under the same roof and Lord Cullen's supposition might certainly come true. How many nights before she had a babe in her belly? How many nights before villagers whispered under their breath when she walked through the town?

No, tonight was the last and it was a blessing. She would remember this evening for the rest of her time on this earth.

xXxXx

After a night spent sleepless with a dying mare and another spent awake and undone with an unclothed maiden, Edward fell into a deep sleep in the corner of Rosalie's stall - after laying his father low outside the Swan's barn, after sending Isabella back to her home, and after helping Carlisle Cullen to his feet and telling him his heart's desires. His slumber was the deep, restorative slumber of those who have made decisions long pushed aside, who have accepted the certainties which were only moments ago unacceptable. He did not dream, for there was nothing that might be better than what had occurred in his mare's empty stall.

When he woke, Isabella was the first thing on his mind. He closed his eyes as his hand closed over himself. She would like to touch him. He would like to taste her. He was in love.

The boy sprang to his feet and rubbed the sleep from his eyes before righting his clothing as best he was able. Yet he was crumpled and covered in straw. Casting his eyes about, he spotted Isabella's medicine satchel. His own traveling bag was back in the infirmary with his father. He was loathe to confront the elder Lord Cullen in the light of day, yet he knew he must look his best before seeking out Master Swan.

Edward squared his shoulders, took a deep breath and headed for the Swan's cottage. He hurried down the path from the barn and through the kitchen garden. Small swallows chirped from bare tree branches and lonely snowflakes fluttered as they fell lazily from the gray sky above, a harbinger of the cold winter to come. The lad wrapped his arms around himself, eager for the warmth of the Swan's hearth and Isabella's eyes, yet the cottage door presented an unanticipated obstacle. As a guest he should knock before entering, yet he was here in order to make himself presentable before seeking out the Swan's company.

Edward hopped from foot to foot as he pondered his course of action. As much as he wished to sneak inside the Swan's home, he knew he needed to leave his underhanded actions in the past. What he had to accomplish this morning was on his own terms, and given the tenor of his last conversation with Master Swan, he had much to prove. Just as the young man raised his fist to knock, the door swung open and he was greeted with Isabella's glowing face and slender frame.

"Sir!"

"Maiden!"

Isabella's hair was swept high and her light brown bodice pulled tight, but Edward saw her as she'd been last night in the barn. He felt a stirring in his groin and had to hold himself back from pulling her close and pressing his lips to hers.

Isabella glanced over her shoulder before closing the door behind her.

"Are you hurt?" she asked him, taking his doubly injured hand in hers. "Perhaps you are the one in need of a splint this morning."

"I am fine. I am better than fine." Edward clasped her hand to his chest and Isabella startled, glancing over her shoulder once more.

"As am I, Edward. I am to follow my dreams."

"That is what I informed my father last night!" the boy exclaimed, overcome. Their minds were as one and he saw this as evidence that their union was heavenly ordained.

A crease appeared between Isabella's eyes. "You spoke with him about my dreams?"

Edward shook his head. "No, I told him I will not be a priest. I cannot."

Isabella covered her lips with her hand. "You will not?"

"I will not," he replied breathlessly.

"And your father heard your plea?"

"He heard me, maiden. He set me free. I am not to return to Center City." Edward took a breath. He stood tall. "I am no longer his son."

"What, my lord?" Isabella gasped, steadying herself against the cottage wall.

"I am no lord, Isabella. I am Edward. I am yours."

"Edward, what will you do?"

"I have come to ask your father for your hand. You know my dreams. I believe you are my destiny."

"But I am a woman."

"Indeed, I know it better than any other man on this earth. You are a woman I hunger for with my body and soul. My purpose on this journey was to find you, of this I am certain."

"But Edward, I am a human searching out her own destiny. This purpose I dream of has just recently emerged, and you helped me to see what it might be. I am to study the stars like my mother. I am still learning about myself, my mind and my body. I am too young for you to love as a fixed star, for I am still ever changing like the bloom on a rose."

"But surely -"

"Surely, sir, you have a destiny to seek, but be it a purpose and not a woman and then you will no doubt be doubly satisfied."

"How can I be satisfied if I do not have you?"

"You cannot _have_ me. You can only know me." The girl's cheeks colored. "We know one another quite well and I am so grateful for the discovery. But I am not ready to spread my thighs and lay my dreams to rest when I have only just discovered what they might be."

"You do not dream of me?" the boy asked.

"Another night with you on this homestead and it would be more than a dream. My body comes to life when you are near. You know my desires."

"Which is why I'd assumed -"

"'Twas you who spoke to me of my intelligence," the girl continued. "'Twas you who encouraged me to study the mathematics of the stars. Now that you've fixated on my bed, have you forgotten my mind?"

Edward gazed into the girl's big, brown eyes and saw himself reflected back. "We made a life together last night, Bella."

The girl smiled hearing her pet name on Edward's lips, but wiped an errant tear from her eye. "You must know my father would not grant you my hand this morning. What would you offer besides your manhood? When I asked what you would be when we imagined our wedded world you said - "

"I would not be a priest."

"And now you shan't. But what will you be, Edward? I cannot make my life with someone who is not a priest, someone to whom I am their only purpose."

Edward turned his back to the maiden. He looked about at the rolling fields, at the dirt lane leading up to the ridge and the tall pines beyond. "I thought I had finally found something, but this is not my home, is it?"

"I will pray you find your destiny."

"I will pray you find yours as well, and when it is found it involves taking my hand, my heart, my name, and my bed."

Isabella's heart fluttered in her chest. She grasped the boy's fingers and he clung to her. "What will your name be, Edward, if you are not to be called Cullen?"

"I shall be Edward Masen, after my mother. He cannot take her from me. I was born from her, not from him."

"Edward Masen, would you write to me to tell me what you find on your journey?" she asked.

"Only if you pledge to reply and tell me what you discover in the skies."

"I certainly will, sir."

Edward pulled Isabella by the hand until she was facing him, until her body was flush with his. Finally she felt the length of him against her. She bit her lip and held her breath.

"Allow me one liberty before I depart, maiden."

Isabella's heart fought the bounds of her bodice and a restless heat rose to her cheeks. She lowered her head, but Edward caught her chin and lifted her face to meet his. He clutched her tenderly but purposefully and she felt the barest hint of the strength lying hidden in his limbs. His lips were dry as they brushed hers, a kiss at once lingering, yet exasperating in its brevity.

"We will meet again, Isabella," Edward murmured, his warm breath bathing her lips and bringing goose bumps to life on her flesh.

"I feel in my soul that we will."

Edward's lips turned up in smile. "You admit to souls after all!"

Isabella did in fact admit to something more than body and mind after these past five nights with Edward. For the way her mind and Edward's met and mingled brought to life an intense yearning that was more than she had accounted for in her previous sixteen years. Yet she did not intend to share this information with Edward just yet. She felt she would be giving too much of herself in the admission. "For your sake, I do hope your dear horse had a soul and she is looking over your well-being for the rest of your journey. But do not push me on their existence, Edward. I am too headstrong to be easily swayed by the opinion of a passing lad."

"Tell me that is not all I am to you," Edward pled.

Isabella could not lie, yet neither could she give voice to the words in her heart. Speak them and she might never leave Bryn Athyn. She shook her head, yet it was not enough. He was not just a passing lad, he had meant so much more. For emphasis, Isabella went up on tiptoe and threaded her hands through Edward's rumpled hair, bringing his face to hers. She held back her words but not her lips, and although snow fell about them, it was as if she were struck by lightning in a summertime storm. Light and heat seared through her middle, from her heart to her groin. While they gripped and pressed and held onto one another tight, their minds took flight to the barn and the bed of their dreams.

The cottage door creaked and the two young people sprung apart, their chests rising and falling as if they'd run another of their races.

"Here you are, Daughter."

"Father," Isabella panted. "I am."

Master Swan looked from maiden to lad, from his discolored hand to the color in both of their cheeks.

"And Lord Cullen tells me you are to continue your journey, Edward."

Edward looked at his toes. "Yes, sir."

"And I am not to call you 'lord'."

"No, sir."

Charles Swan did not know what transpired while he slept, but Lord Cullen seemed gleefully eager to sponsor Isabella at the cloister when petitioned this morning. The lord's self-satisfied smile was disquieting on his bruised and misshapen face as he boasted that the young man sleeping in the barn should no longer be called Cullen.

 _"I am not paying you for his board any longer, Charles. You might banish him for trespass on your most precious of properties."_

"Do you know where you will travel from here?" Master Swan asked the lad.

Edward's head swam. In his mind, his travels had taken him from a barn to a bed. "I haven't a clue," he admitted.

"Did Isabella tell you she's to study at the cloister?"

Edward's heart ached. "Yes, sir."

"She tells me I am to give you credit, for you sparked something within which helped bring together heart and mind. She will follow in her mother's footsteps and make a name for herself."

Edward looked up from his feet and into Isabella's eyes. "She is brilliant. It was none of my work."

"Let us not quarrel with credit, nor cast our eyes about in blame. I sent my daughter to find you so we might together break our fast before we go our separate ways."

"I would rather not share the table with Lord Cullen, Master Swan."

"Nor would I, Edward. He is to take his meal in his room."

 _"You would have me banish your own seed?"_

 _"I see none of myself in him. Pity his mother is dead, so if there was truth to uncover it's gone to her grave."_

"Daughter, would you make haste and prepare the table?"

Isabella looked from Edward to her father. "Yes, of course." With another lingering glance, she left the two men in the fluttering snow.

"You have a good steed in Leah," Charles began, offering Edward a seat on the garden bench.

"She is not mine, Master Swan. She was purchased by my father."

"And I would buy her back before I allowed him to take the horse from you. Edward, I have profited enough these past few days to loan you gold for your travels."

Edward blanched and shook his head, recalling Lord Cullen's words from the night before about the true purpose of the payment. "It is yours, Master Swan. Please understand how grateful I am for your care and the home you opened to two traveling strangers. Without this sojourn, I might have stumbled into a life I was not destined to live. I hope I am lucky enough to find others like you in the world."

"And the world is lucky to have you traveling through it, my lad. It is in need of upstanding men with open minds, willing to put in a hard day's labor. I may have judged you too harshly yesterday. You are clearly not to be compared with the man in my infirmary. Take your father's gold on loan, for I know it will bring you back to my home. I would like to know the man you make of yourself after this.

"Now let us go enjoy a meal. I can talk of my own travels, of lands you might yet visit; of places where you might find your purpose."

"Thank you, sir."

"And one more thing, Edward. If she were not so intelligent, I might keep her here, but you should not keep a brilliant woman. You must let her shine. If you are persistent and if you are lucky, one day she might shine on you."

~fin~

 **A/N: Thanks to all who faithfully read and reviewed as I took this little midieval Twific detour. Thanks to the folks over at The Lemonade Stand for your recs, to Nic for helping re-launch my imaginary fanfic career, and of course to RoseArcadia for your beautiful artwork.**

 **Could there be a sequel to this some day? Maybe. It's already happening in my mind. But I need to move out of the world of 'twas and shan't and into more modern times.**

 **So, on December 20th I'll be publishing the first chapter of It Never Goes Out, a sequel of sorts to There is a Light. It's the expanded version of the out-take/future-take I wrote for the Babies at the Border compilation. If you're interested please put me on Author Alert & it'll show up in your inbox soon. **

**Until then ~ XOXO ~ BDC**


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